One of my favorite parts of building a website happens before I write any code. I get to learn about someone’s business. I listen to business owners explain what they do, how they got started, what they offer, who they help, and why they do things the way they do. Somewhere in those conversations, I almost always find something that makes me think, That’s gold.
And I tell them that. Not because I think my job is to be a cheerleader who tells clients everything they want to hear and everything they do is wonderful. It isn’t. Sometimes an idea needs work. Sometimes something that feels important to the business owner isn’t going to matter very much to a prospective customer. I believe being honest about those things is part of my job too.
But when I see something genuinely valuable, I want the client to know that I see it.
Recognizing the Gold
Business owners spend so much time inside their businesses that they don’t always recognize what is remarkable about them. Something may feel ordinary because they’ve been doing it for years. They may assume everyone in their industry does it. Or they may know that something is special but have a hard time explaining why.
That’s where an outside perspective can be valuable. When I work with a client, I try to internalize their offering. I want to understand it well enough that I can see the business from two perspectives at once: from the owner’s perspective and from the perspective of someone discovering it for the first time.
I’m looking for the gold.
What makes this business different? What does this person know that their customers would find valuable? What do they do exceptionally well? What would make someone trust them? What stories should they be telling?
Sometimes, when I point these things out, I can tell it means something to the client. That’s because someone else sees what they have built. Someone who works with businesses and websites for a living is saying, “No, really. This part is valuable. People need to know about this.”
I love that part of my work.
A Website Should Communicate That Value
Recognizing the gold is only the beginning. Then we have to figure out how to communicate it. A business owner may have twenty things they want prospective customers to know. That doesn’t mean we should put twenty paragraphs at the top of the home page.
The web has rules.
People scan. They make decisions quickly. They need clear headings. They need to understand where they are, what a business offers, and what they should do next.
I think of website content as moving from summarized information to expanded information. Give visitors the important information first, using as much brevity as possible. Let them understand it in bite-sized pieces. Then give them the opportunity to learn more. We cannot fire-hose them with information.
If someone wants the details, wonderful. We can give them another section, an FAQ, a service page, a case study, or a blog post. But we shouldn’t force every visitor to read everything we know before they can figure out whether they are in the right place.
Good website communication respects the visitor.
There Is a Technical Side Too
Understanding a business doesn’t replace good web development. The two need to work together.
There are established principles behind a well-built website, including performance, accessibility, SEO, usability, and best practices.
A beautiful message buried inside a slow, confusing, inaccessible website isn’t enough. At the same time, a technically perfect website that doesn’t communicate why anyone should care about the business isn’t enough either.
That’s one reason I don’t like overwhelming clients with technical language. My clients shouldn’t have to become web developers to participate in building their own websites. It’s my responsibility to understand the technical side and explain the decisions that affect them in language they can understand.
The Website Can Become the Center of Your Content
Another thing happens when I really begin to understand a client’s business. I start seeing content everywhere.
“That should be a blog post.”
“You should make a video showing people how that works.”
“That would make a great reel.”
“You could have an entire podcast discussion about this.”
But I don’t see those as separate pieces of content that have nothing to do with the website. I see the website as the place where all of it begins. A blog post can become the core concept. It gives us a place to fully develop an idea, answer a question, explain something valuable, and create content that can be found through search.
Then we can expand that same idea in different ways.
A YouTube video can demonstrate it visually or provide a tutorial. A podcast can turn it into a deeper conversation. A reel can pull out one useful or interesting point. A short ad can introduce the problem and point people toward the solution. Social media posts can highlight different pieces of the larger idea.
Instead of constantly trying to invent something new to post, one strong piece of content can become the foundation for many different conversations. And all of those conversations can lead back to the website, where the complete information lives and where someone can learn more about the business.
This is the kind of content system I build. I’ve been doing it for years for other businesses. Now, I’m working on doing it for my own business — Zade Balance. We start with something genuinely useful, develop it well on the website, and then find the best ways to present and expand that idea across other channels.
More Than Building a Website
Maybe that’s why I’ve never thought of website development as simply taking someone’s content and putting it online. Before I can build a website that represents a business well, I need to understand what I’m representing. That requires curiosity and listening. It requires understanding the business owner’s perspective while also knowing the established principles of website design.
It requires knowing these rules and translating the website content and design into something valuable rather than complicating everything with technical jargon. And that requires looking at what a business owner has created, recognizing its value, and saying with complete conviction: “This is gold. Let’s make sure people see it.”
That’s the kind of web designer I strive to be.
