Probably nobody.
That may be the first mistake we make when creative work starts going sideways: assuming there has to be a winner.
The designer has expertise. The client knows the business. Both have opinions. Both can also be wrong.
And somewhere outside the meeting is the person neither side should forget: the customer.
Websites come with no shortage of rules.
Put the CTA above the fold.
Be consistent.
Keep it simple.
Minimize friction.
Follow conventions.
Most of those rules exist for good reasons.
The trouble starts when “best practice” quietly turns into “must.”
For years, websites were built around a comfortable assumption:
People arrive at the homepage.
Increasingly, they don’t.
Search sends visitors directly to service pages and articles. Shared links drop them halfway into a site. AI tools point people to specific pages. Even Google says its ranking systems primarily evaluate content at the page level, not simply the website as one giant unit.
The homepage still matters.
It just lost its monopoly on first impressions.
Present an article. To a committee.
That was the request.
In another lifetime, while working in employee communications for an airline, I wrote an article introducing a new employee benefit program. A manager asked me to present it to a committee for approval.
So there I was in a boardroom with eight colleagues, my article projected onto the wall.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Wayne Gretzky
A great quote to live by.
But here’s the part we tend to forget:
Most shots miss.
That is true in business, creative work and almost anything worth pursuing. Good work gets rejected. Strong pitches go unanswered. Smart ideas fail to land.
Success usually requires far more attempts than wins.
So take the shot. Then learn enough from the miss to make the next one better.
There was a time when simply having a polished website helped a business stand apart.
That time has packed up its gradients and left.
Today, competent design is everywhere. Templates are better. Tools are easier. Stock photography has become suspiciously handsome. Even modest businesses can launch websites with clean typography, generous white space and tasteful animations that arrive as though entering a gallery opening.
That is good news for the Internet.
For businesses trying to stand apart, it creates a new problem.
When every website looks professional, what makes one stick?
Most people know how they describe themselves.
That is not the same as knowing how the internet describes them.
A potential client may Google your name. An employer may scan LinkedIn. A new contact may ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity who you are before deciding whether you are worth a conversation.
By then, your online identity has already introduced itself.
The question is whether it introduced the right person.
Lately, more agencies have been asking us to refine, expand or rebuild their clients’ FAQ sections.
Not because FAQs suddenly became glamorous.
Nobody is gathering around a boardroom table saying, “Forget the homepage. Let’s make the FAQs pop!”
But they are getting more attention because a strong FAQ section can do several jobs at once. It can support search visibility, help AI systems understand a business, answer sales objections, strengthen internal linking and prevent service pages from buckling under every possible detail.
That is a lot of useful work for a section once treated as the website’s miscellaneous drawer.
Websites should grow.
A business adds services, enters new markets, develops useful resources and learns more about what its customers need. Done strategically, that growth can create opportunities, improve search visibility and give visitors clearer paths to conversion.
The trouble starts when the growth is random.
A new page gets bolted on. Then a pop-up. Then a chatbot. Then another call to action, a video background, three new plug-ins and a carousel nobody has willingly swiped since 2014.
Nothing gets removed because everything once seemed important to someone.
One is strategic growth.
The other is a dusty junk drawer with navigation.
A website design partner recently asked how Webcopy+ continues to generate leads through Google.
There are plenty of ingredients involved. A well-structured website helps. Useful content helps. Authority built over many years certainly helps.
But one of the simplest habits has also been one of the most effective:
We call things what people call them.
