These clients will often come to a web design company and ask hundreds of questions (not all of which make sense) and web designers have to be able to field all of these inquiries as well as respond in such a manner that they understand that the web design company they’re speaking with is the one for them. What I’ve found interesting about these discussions between clients and companies is that the client will always ask “what about free web design templates” when you hit them with the price tag for the fully customized website they were asking about moments ago. Designers and salesmen have to make sure clients know the limits of free web design templates and how unlike customizable ones, they will NOT grow with their business.

Search Engine Optimization; an old practice by logical web designers, but it’s something that is constantly reworked, changed, and improved (thought not always for the best). What has not changed in terms of optimizing a website for higher rankings in any search engine, is that there are proper methods, and then there are, well, improper ways to market your website. These SEO practices, both good and bad, have become a major driving force in how New York web designers design, develop, and spread the word about their creations. With hundreds of web development companies, and literally thousands of designers in such a closed space competition becomes fierce. No longer can NYC web designers rely on their beautiful creations to wow the public and garner a larger business base. SEO has become the single most driving factor behind NY websites and here’s a list of reasons why:

1. Too Much Competition
For all of the wonders that NYC has to offer because of its largely diverse population, therein lies the problem; New York is simply too large to stand out with aesthetics alone. New York Web Design firms not only have to design their own websites with search engine optimization in mind, but they have to do the same for their clients who are always asking to be at the top of the list for whatever it is their trying to market (be it themselves or a product).

2. The New Yorker’s Personality
New Yorkers are impatient, grumpy, and succinct when it comes to messages. They are constantly bombarded with advertisements in both the real world and the digital. This constant exposure to marketing firms leaves them desensitized when it comes any sort of marketing message. To get around this, web designers have to employee SEO techniques to get their sites at the top of a user’s search so that the first thing a New Yorker sees when looking for something like “FDNY Graphic Tees” is a specific website.

3. Too Creative
A great, wonderful, and at the same time horrible thing about New York City is that it houses three of the best art and design schools in the nation. The School of Visual Arts, Parsons The New School For Design, and Cooper Union. Each of these colleges are known for producing a large volume of creative graduates each year, and a large portion of these students join up with web design firms in various positions. With so much creativity exploding in a small metropolitan area, it becomes hard to distinguish one individual or design firm from another. Yet another reason SEO becomes the backbone for New York web design.