Anybody can become a web designer, but to become truly successful, there are essential habits and characteristics that you have to adapt. These traits spell the difference between breaking even, and exceeding to real success.

Below are four of the characteristics that have helped us at 5 Shades Media become some of the best website designers on the internet.

The Best Website Designers Bid Right

Don't sell yourself short, but don't bid outside of your skill range. Bidding right means determining the real value of your time, the real return on investment for a job well done, and the client's budget and the value they place on the outcome.

For information about how to price your bids, have a look at our article on Website Design Prices.

Keep in mind that you can bid too low on a project. The best web design clients won't choose a low bidder because they know they get what they pay for. On the other hand, if you're going to bid a professional price, you'd better be able to prove you're worth it.

The Best Website Designers Work Fast

While many get into the web design business expecting to be digital artists, the fact of the industry is that you need to work at the speed of professional production, not the speed of art.

The best website designers are decisive and confident enough to turn out multiple mockups in a single day, and then act on the chosen mockup with a functioning prototype soon after.

The key word here is "decisive." Feeling out your project is a habit for your personal hobby or side business in fine art - website design tends to be about business, and your clients will expect you to be productive and responsive.

If you approach your website design projects like an artist, you can expect to starve like an artist.

The Best Website Designers Show Off

Modesty is for the meek. Show off your past designs, and show off your client testimonials, shamelessly. There's no shame in being proud of your success, and showing off is the quickest way to prove to prospective clients that you have what they want.

Take us for example - our portfolio has more than 100 past designs on display. We're proud to show off, and we have every right to be, because our designs rock the house.

That's why we're successful enough that we can share the wealth of knowledge and experience with newer web designers. We're among the best, and we're not worried about showing it in every way we can.

The Best Website Designers Love to Work

And this is the #1 trait that you need to embrace in order to become successful in web design. The best private web designers can start earning six figures after 3-5 years in business, if they love to work.

If you love to work in this business, you'll be pulling long hours to express that love, juggling multiple contracts, to guarantee that communication and review cycles never bore you with unwanted downtime.

Loving to work means preferring to cram every available hour with some aspect of the business, whether it's improving your skills, selling short pick-up jobs, or jamming out an important project before deadline.