19 Signs Your Website Sucks & What to Do about It
Let’s get real about websites and the web in general. It’s not as easy as it looks. I know it. You know it. It’s certainly not that easy to have a great website. It takes a whole lot of work to design, implement and maintain. Websites are hard.
But, here’s the thing: websites are important. Really important. And if you are not making the most out of your website, you’re doing your brand a serious disservice.
So let’s skip the fluff and look at some of the warning signs that your website, quite frankly, sucks and some of the steps you can take to fix it.
The Design
It has been 3 or more years since the last website overhaul. That’s like 50 years in terms of the Internet! A lot has changed in the past few years—the rise of mobile, 4G, humongous desktop monitors, tablets, Windows 8—just to name a few. If your website suffers from old age, take some action and trade her in for a newer model or at least give her a serious makeover.
Your website isn’t responsive. If your website doesn’t adjust to fit a plethora of different sized monitors and devices you’re losing business. Customer expectations require mobile compatibility and Google has even started penalizing websites that are not responsive.
If you want to know more about responsive design and how to implement it download our free white paper.
Your website has a splash page. Splash pages had a very important role on the web during the late ‘90s but it has been a long time since anyone needed to be funneled between Netscape and Internet Explorer in order to use and enjoy a website. It is time to kill that splash page and free your website from the chains of ‘90s web design.
Your design looks outdated (really outdated). Is your website covered in beveled edges, poorly thought-out gradients and animated gifs? Does it generally feel like something from the days of yore? Small changes can make a big difference but if your website looks outdated chances are it needs an overhaul not a tweak.
Your site is dependent on Flash. Flash had its day but somewhere between compatibility issues, search algorithm issues, and long load times Flash has become far more trouble than it’s worth. Scrub your site of all signs of Flash and replace it with newer JavaScript or HTML5 interactions/animations.
Your Site has auto-play music or video. This probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turns out to be really-really annoying (like nails on a chalkboard kind of annoying.) Turn off the volume, kill the ambient MIDI-trance ballad of yesteryear and let people press the play button for that embedded video clip. Your users will be much happier.
Your business has grown but your website hasn’t. You built your website and it served you well, but your company has grown (you offer new products and services) but your website still harkens back to when you were a tiny shop with limited means. Reanalyze your site and see what is missing. Then before building out new content or navigation conduct an audit on your web properties and dig deep into the research to rediscover how your clients use your website. Confirm what action paths best serve your brand.
The website has no graphics and is generally boring. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Nothing can put people to sleep like a boring website. Make sure that your website is interesting. Even a “dry” subject can have complementing images and snappy content to keep the snooze factor on low.