How to Ruin Your Website in 5 Easy Steps

We’ve talked a lot about what goes into good website design…

…but it’s just as important to talk about what not to do to help you avoid some treacherous mistakes that could sink your business.

Therefore, if you wanted to know how to ruin your website, here’s how you could accomplish that in 5 easy steps.

Let’s jump right in!

5 Steps On How To Ruin Your Website

Step 1: Assume that any plain old website design will get the job done.
Step 2: Don’t include links to other content on your website.
Step 3: Use poor-quality images.
Step 4: Forego a business blog.
Step 5: Forget about your customers that browse the internet from mobile devices.

Step 1: Assume that any plain old website design will get the job done.

If you use WordPress for your website, you’ll have more than 5,000 templates to choose from.

So why not take the time to sift through these options to find one that best represents your brand and the story you want to tell.

Your website design is very telling of the pride that you take in your business.

Choosing a plain, basic, and boring template probably won’t communicate the right message to your audience.

Speaking of WordPress, if you want to elevate your WordPress website design, get in touch with us today.

Step 2: Don’t include links to other content on your website.

The next step on how to ruin your website is all about links.

Let’s face it.

No matter how great you think your website is, your visitors are eventually going to lose interest and click elsewhere.

If you don’t do yourself a favor and include links to other relevant content on your website…

…you are missing out on a huge opportunity to keep your audience engaged.

Step 3: Use poor-quality images.

You might think you’re being artsy and creative by using blurry images on your website…

…but you’ll just end up looking unprofessional and turning off your audience.

With free photo-enhancing tools like Instagram, beautiful, high-quality images have become mainstream.

So here’s a tutorial on how to fix blurry photos that you can read next. 

However, it’s also important to remember that while high-quality images rule in website design…

…you’ll want to make sure that the load time of these images is fast enough to keep your audience’s attention.

After all, 47% of consumers expect a webpage to load in 2 seconds or less and will choose to abandon a website otherwise.

This is one of the many reasons why DIY website design may not be the smartest option for your business.

Step 4: Forego a business blog.

If you think your customers don’t read blogs, think again.

According to recent research, more than 77% of internet users read blogs regularly.

Your business blog is one of your most powerful digital marketing tools.

Companies with blogs get 97% more clicks to their websites.

Since you will regularly publish new content on your business blog…

…including a blog on your website is an easy solution for consistently earning new indexed pages.

This will also help to boost your website’s search ranking.

Step 5: Forget about your customers that browse the internet from mobile devices.

The number of people that use mobile devices to browse the internet has now surpassed the number of desktop internet users.

What does this mean for your business’s website design? It needs to be mobile-friendly.

Your business has 3 basic options for mobile website design:

1. A separate mobile website
2. A dynamic serving website (same URL, but different HTML and CSS depending on the device used to access the website)
3. A responsive design (everything remains the same and automatically adjusts to provide for the optimal user experience regardless of the device used).

Of these 3 options, responsive design is recommended by Google.

If you decide to not make your website mobile-friendly…

…you can expect to see a significant drop in rankings due to Google’s recent mobile-friendly algorithm update.

Check out our responsive web design services here if you need help with that.

So if you want to sink your website, these are 5 of the most effective steps on how to ruin your website.

If you’re reading through this list and find that you are making some of these mistakes with your website design…

…it’s probably time to give your website an update. Here are some website redesign ideas to help you get started.

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