The Most Popular Websites

Drudgereport.com is the ugliest website I’ve ever seen. The font is too small and difficult to read. There’s no consistency with image sizes. It’s not an engaging website, and most of the links towards the bottom of the page are useless. The website’s search function is not easily accessible.

Despite its lack of aesthetics, Drudge Report is one of the most popular websites in the United States. It shows that a beautiful website isn’t everything. Drudge Report is responsive and built-well technically.

I wouldn’t encourage new website owners to follow Drudge’s lead and completely disregard the aesthetic component of a website. However, many new website owners go overboard trying to make their website look perfect. This often includes large images and a lot of CSS, which can slow down a website.

The Website is Perfectly Functional

I would have to go with CarlyAyres.com as the ugliest and most visually unappealing website design that I’ve ever come across since the dial-up era. Carly Ayres uses a Google Doc as the actual website, claiming that it possesses all the functionality she requires. So with contributions from people all over the world, her blog is a mishmash of colors, comments, and edits that contribute to its grotesque aesthetic.

Once you get past the looks, her website is perfectly functional, and the concept of hosting an entire website on Google Docs is unique and brilliant in its own right.

Mobile Is Even Worse, Forget About Responsive Design

sponsorshipaustralia.net. I stumbled across this site from a friend who sent it to me for review. Needless to say, there really wasn’t much for me to say other than, “The entire site needs to be redone.” What I love the most is the logo that someone just slapped on the site, thinking it was the same color as the background. Mobile is even worse, forget about responsive design.

Looks Very Old And Out Of Date

The ugliest website I’ve ever seen is the IL tax website. It is ugly and hard to use or find documents on, which is ironic considering how much state income tax IL takes from its residents each year: mytax.illinois.gov

The site is bland, uses antiquated buttons and links, and looks very old and out of date. Luckily it serves its function, making it ok, and something I would not suggest the state pays someone to update.

The Advancement Of Chatbots In 2021

One thing I’m interested in is the advancement of chatbots in 2021. It feels like client-side AI has become much more advanced in just the last few years. The algorithms controlling the responses are tighter and often much more comprehensive. Many customers can be helped through chatbot alone. It is a great resource in addition to standard customer service.

I’d like to see chatbots speak in more conversational tones, however. Right now, they still definitely sound like AI. While there’s no need to “trick” customers into thinking they’re talking to real people, chatbots can only be improved by having more intuitive responses that fall in line with those of a human.

My Web Design Trends For 2021

Technology development is fast-phased, and so is web design. Your website is the “silent ambassador” of your brand. It gives your clients the impression of who you are and what you do. If it is beautifully designed, intelligently built, and provides up-to-date technology, it will keep the existing users and bring in new ones. As for me, here are the web design trends for 2021:

Minimalism – “Less is more” is back. It is commonly known as flat designs with a clean and sleek look. It is associated with white, but also using the right vibrant colors to achieve that minimalist look.

Personalized content – [This content] is based on the data collected on the user’s behavior and preference. This is a practical way to target a segmented audience and an effective tool in delivering your message to the right people at the right time.

AI Chatbots – Chatbots are an effective tool to address the repetitive task. It answers simple queries like product descriptions and frequently asked questions. It is a reliable way to reach out to customers in real-time who want to find vital information about your company.

Smart Informative Videos – [Some] people are always in a hurry. Uploading a video on your site is the way to address the needs of this particular group. These people want to obtain information fast while commuting or traveling. Remember to create a video that is short but packed with information to capture the intended audience.

Fast – No matter how well-designed your site is, if it is not fast enough, it is a big turn-off to visitors. They will check your competitors instead.

2021 Web Design Trends

Voice automated websites
Companies will most likely level up their websites by putting in a chat box that is human-like to cater to the needs of the visitors. Instead of typing, customers will just need to speak, and their conversation will start up and keep going on until they find what they are looking for.

Browsing and Loading speed
Websites will be easier to navigate even if they contain a lot of graphics and videos. Users will not get bored or annoyed with their loading speed.

You’re not a coding genius, but you do need a website for your business. Fortunately, web building platforms have your back with “drag and drop” interfaces that allow you to create beautiful, intuitive websites—even if you know nothing about HTML, CSS or Java. There are a lot of platforms out there to get you started so we asked the experts to narrow down the choices. Read on to learn more.

WordPress

Why is WordPress Best for SEO?

WordPress is the best website building platform because it has significant third-party support. Many online tutorials and guides assume that the reader uses WordPress. It’s much easier to follow a tutorial to the letter, rather than adapting it for another platform.

In addition to web tutorials, many popular SaaS tools have WordPress integrations. With WordPress, website owners don’t need to hire a developer to integrate a tool they find useful. Instead, they can install the plugin and connect the integration in a few minutes.

WordPress is the best SEO platform because of the friendly CMS and plugin support. The CMS makes it extremely easy to add metadata, optimize images, and edit permalinks. It also supports plugins like Yoast SEO, which makes it easy for any business owner to optimize their content.

WordPress isn’t the best, but…

Technically speaking WordPress isn’t the best platform to build a website on, but people will get more out of it as it is the most popular and every man and their dog has some kind of experience with it.

The forums, support groups and network for help around WordPress are fantastic – any issues you have you just reach out and somebody else will have had that same problem and will be able to give you the solution.

The guides are so widespread and available that it is simple to get going on WordPress from day one and start to optimise your site immediately.

The user interface is friendly and intuitive so even a beginner will be able to get a website up and running in a few days. Then for more advanced things they can self-learn or reach out for help from one of the many communities.

Benefits of using WordPress

Widely Supported

You might not have realized it but WordPress is everywhere. Almost 38% of websites were using WordPress in July 2020 according to w3techs. And this number is steadily increasing, as in 2019 this percentage was 34%.

Because so many websites are actively using WordPress, it is constantly being tested, developed, and troubleshot. If you come across a question or something you can’t quite get to work, chances are highly likely someone else has had the same idea and has come up with a solution or answer, meaning you can often find them yourself with a quick search saving you time.

Easy To Build & Customize Without A Developer

WordPress makes it easier than ever to build and customize your website with a steady supply of plugins, endless themes, and, most recently, the implementation of WordPress Gutenberg.

WordPress Gutenberg has come a long way from its first strongly criticized release. Not only can it be used to write articles, but it can completely customize your website’s layout, too—all without a single line of code.

And in the near future, there will be less of a need for additional plugins and page builders to design your website.

WordPress Is Reliable, Updated & Has a Strong Focus On Security

WordPress has been around for a long time since it first appeared in 2003, yet it is still steadily getting used on more websites year after year.

Why?

Because despite WordPress being old, it is still frequently updated to provide the best reliability, tools, optimization, and security possible.

If you use WordPress for your website then you can be confident that it’s not going to vanish tomorrow because WordPress has proven time and time again that it’s a powerful tool for creating your website.

WordPress Is Free & Open-Source, Resulting In A Huge Library Of Plugins

WordPress is an open-source platform and it is free to use on any web host that supports it. This has made it incredibly popular and easy for developers to work on.

Since WordPress has a feature called a plugin, this has resulted in a massive library of custom add-ons that you can add to your website.

If there’s something specific you want to do with your blog, you’ll probably find there’s a plugin for it already as the WordPress plugin library currently hosts over 57,000 addons you can use. This is the kind of feature that other platforms either don’t have or are lacking in terms of options.

With this level of customization through plugins, and the fact that WordPress is open-source, your only restrictions on what you can do with your website will be based on your developer, designer, and plugin usage.

SEO Friendly

WordPress can benefit your search engine optimization (SEO) so your website can be found more [easily] on Google as it comes with key SEO settings that are easy to access and customize through the WordPress dashboard. Not to mention WordPress websites are structured to make crawling and understanding your website as easy as possible.

Furthermore, let’s not forget about the SEO-specific plugins you’ll have access to that will help you optimize for on-page SEO even more.

If you are considering what platform to use to build your website then WordPress should definitely be a top consideration. Due to its many benefits including:

• Free to implement and use
• Widely supported and easy to troubleshoot
• Complete customization
• Easy to build without the need for a developer
• Frequent updates
• A proven platform
• Strong security
• Huge variety of plugin addons
• Google and search engine optimization friendly

WordPress stands out

Appearance.

WordPress gives you the autonomy to build on its platform as you see fit for the vision of your company. The theme offerings (if you choose not to build from scratch) I’ve found on Theme Forest, Creative Market, and Etsy can spice up any website. The customizations you can make based on what you need cause WordPress to stand out from the rest with very minimal investment. It takes only a few quick minutes to go from drab to glam.

Affordability.

WordPress does not have a monthly fee much like its competitors, Shopify and SquareSpace. With a self-hosted WordPress website, your only costs are a theme (if applicable) and hosting. Not to mention, you can leverage several versions of FREE plug-ins to enhance the user experience and increase functionality. Also, there’s no fee to connect WooCommerce, my go-to e-commerce platform. It makes it easy for creators looking to sell physical or digital products; low overhead = more revenue in your bank account. Lastly, with a WordPress website, you can build opt-in and sales pages on the backend of your website. See ya later, LeadPages.

Accessibility.

WordPress is a low-cost barrier to entry for any level of entrepreneur. One of the features I enjoy the most is the never-ending list of integrations with email autoresponders, chat boxes, social media platforms, and more than business owners can use to leverage their online home. And if you really want to be extra, you can build your own “Members Only” area that resembles Facebook on the backend of your website. In addition, WordPress is SEO-friendly. Take all those traffic-driven hashtags you use on Instagram and use them in your content [to] draw the masses without being shadow-banned.

WordPress so far is the best.

When building a website, the most critical thing to decide on is what platform to use. As a digital marketing executive, I can say that I have worked on several platforms, but WordPress so far is the best.

Here are 3 reasons why WordPress is the best platform to build a website on:

WordPress is completely free.

Who doesn’t love to get free products or services? The WordPress platform is entirely free so there’s one less ongoing service cost to worry about.

WordPress is user-friendly.

It is good even for beginners. You wouldn’t need any knowledge in coding to create a website. The dashboard is so simple and easy to understand.

WordPress has superb security features.

This platform was made with security in mind, so it is safe to say that the makers of WordPress really put security on top of their list. It protects your information and content. They are also updating their security measures to fix any issues or concerns.

You have to design with the end goal in mind.

Web design isn’t fine art. No one takes a screenshot of their website, prints it out and hangs it next to a photo of their family. So, if your designs don’t scream purpose and point users in the direction you want them to go then you’re missing it.

I often see websites that are little more than an online business card. If you want to engage users and really see your presence on the web impact your business or organization, you have to start with the end. Start with where you want people to end up. If that’s buying a product or signing up for a service then great. If it’s to inform or educate then make sure you’re doing it intentionally and not leaving a ton of opportunity on the table. If you’re not doing it, you can guarantee your competition is.

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience

I would say if I had to choose a single best actionable design tip it would be to put yourself in the shoes of the target audience. Remember, design is there to serve a purpose in the most effective way possible. The design has to be both practical and pleasing to the eye. Think to yourself, “If I was the target audience, would this make sense to me and does it work as I would expect it to?” Ask what it is the target audience wants and requires and don’t let other things distract you from this.

Invest time in learning responsive systems!

Knowing how CSS Grid and Flexbox work will allow you to communicate better with your developers and design websites with an experience that stands the test of time and different device sizes.

Be memorable

In every memorable site, there is something that we like. It can be anything: interesting news or funny pictures, videos or useful information. The most important thing is that a large number of users like the content. So, I advise you to simplify user access to content. Good design in 90% of cases is not noticeable even for pros! Do you notice 9gag design?

Use free tools

Use free, in-depth analytics software (such as hotjar.com) for every single website that goes online for a client. Tools like this let you see exactly how your client’s website is being used in real-time.

You can then use this data to follow up with your client and suggest changes in order to increase conversions. To say they’ll be impressed is an understatement. It’s also a solid way to up-sell them to a monthly package!

A Great Way To Start a Site With an SEO Head Start

We own 41 domains. They just seem to multiply. We are online entrepreneurs and web designers, and we constantly have ideas for new businesses. The reason we have so domains is that when a new idea strikes, it is so easy and inexpensive (plus fun!) to jump on a registrar site and buy a relevant domain name. Maintaining ownership is also not expensive, and we view the domains in our portfolio as assets that will become more valuable over time.

More recently, we have started to acquire domains for a second reason. We recently started to acquire expired domain names at auction. These often have a long history and already have links pointing to them from other sites. This is a great way to start a site with an SEO head start.

To Cover Different Niches and Be Able To Host Content

[I own] 14 domains covering different niches. The main point in having 14 domains in my line of business, online publishing, is to cover different niches and be able to host content regarding various subjects. Diversification is not only a good way to change themes and feel more complete as a content creator, but [protects you against] search engine updates and trend changes.

Having interests in only a single website might be dangerous due to general public search interest changes, topic obsolescence, and also competition. It has proven particularly true and useful this year for example, as the whole travel niche fell down. Having websites with unrelated content was a great way to stay afloat despite big trend changes this year, which are always happening one way or another.

Use Them to Earn Money by Domain Flipping and Domain Parking

I am an experienced domainer. I currently own a portfolio of 65 domain names. The domain names cater to different niches, but primarily I cover niches like insurance, healthcare, education, and shopping. I am holding this portfolio of large domain names because I use them to earn money by domain flipping and domain parking. For domain flipping, I use platforms like Flippo and GoDaddy Auctions. For domain parking, I use platforms like ParkingCrew, ParkLogic, Skenzo, Voodoo, and Sedo.

Covid has Changed my Website in 3 Ways

As the nature of how people can marry [is fluctuating], I’ve had to ensure I have offerings for couples wanting tiny, fast weddings, as well as creating content around how to have small weddings, and what options are available to couples.

To that end, Covid has changed my website in the following ways:

1. During Covid, I’ve had to change the large-wedding images on my website to images that invite couples planning a small wedding or elopement. Couples, and indeed any consumer, only buy into what relates to them and their specific needs. It’s effectively meant switching around what is instantly visible on my website so that couples feel I have a relevant offering during Covid. Those that move the fastest are rewarded. It was incredibly important that my shopfront catered to a changed and emerging market in order to stay sustainable, rather than hanging onto what was.

2. During Covid, I’ve also had to ensure that I can be visible in Google for new search terms around Covid weddings, small weddings, and queries in and around that sphere. This has meant creating content and instructional blog posts that highlight and feature wedding planners and wedding venues that specifically cater to small weddings or elopements during Covid, so that not only can I position myself in Google with ownership over those search terms, but I can also latch onto the audience of those venues and planners with my own relevant offering.

3. As well as catering to the current climate as dictated by Covid, I’ve used the 4-5 months to also build up an enormous backlog of articles for SEO purposes to get a head-start in Google when the climate does indeed return, be that in 1-2 years time or beyond. Making a quick pivot to cater to things now while filling out the back of my site with articles and ideas to be indexed into Google for my domestic market as larger gatherings become an option in the mid-term, has been an important use of time.

My Website is a Robust Source of Resources About our Services – All as a Result Of COVID

Before COVID, my business website advertised our services in academic and test prep tutoring and also served as a hub of resources for students to access. It was a basic, no-frills website that spoke right to parents’ and students’ immediate desires for high grades and high scores. However, I founded my company on the idea that learning is so much more than just achieving high marks. My team of tutors and I utilize the tutoring sessions as opportunities to teach essential “soft skills” such as metacognition, executive functions, and interpersonal skills. Still, I did not advertise this beyond stating phrases like “we teach the underlying learning and life skills” because I found that many parents and students were mostly focused on grades and scores, and I did not want to come off too “foo-foo” and potentially deter clients.

Now, because of COVID, parents who have their children at home are realizing just how vital those skills truly are to areas such as task initiation, self-advocacy, and creative problem-solving. So, I re-vamped my website to reveal that we do assist with these needs. I also listened to my client’s pain points and added other services to my website, including a free blog geared towards helping parents and educators navigate schooling at home, daily Standby Tutoring “Office Hours” for last-minute help, live online Enrichment Courses for students ages 4-19 to get them excited about learning again, and more.

With this new content came many new viewers. The website began to experience hiccups. So, I hired a part-time website manager to help with upkeep and SEO. Now my website is a robust source of resources, guidance, and details about our services – all as a result of COVID.

How COVID has Changed Our Website.

1. More real estate is dedicated to COVID-specific information and offers. The pandemic has completely changed how people are getting married in 2020. Potential clients want more information about what weddings are looking like now and what steps we as vendors are taking to keep them and ourselves safe. Because weddings themselves are different (smaller and shorter), we have had to change the packages that we are offering. Potential clients also want to see information about that. So, we have had to devote more space to pages dedicated to COVID-related things. We have also had to display those pages and the links more prominently so that people can find them quickly.

2. Our SEO is much more COVID-focused. Potential clients are quite understandably changing what they are looking for with Google. They are searching for terms specifically relating to COVID and weddings, and COVID and wedding photography. With that in mind, we have created a lot more copy intended to get us found in those searches.

Added The “Pandemic” Tab On My Website

In the past fifteen to twenty years, I had a website under my name that was static and descriptive of my therapeutic philosophy and offerings as a therapist. When COVID-19 started, I did not change my overall website but opened a new “Pandemic” tab where I started writing about the pandemic. I also recorded a few meditations, which I connected to the “Pandemic” tab on my website.

My website still remains quite basic and homemade. What is different in the Pandemic tab is a change of tone which reflects an openness to share and be less of a blank screen therapist. I did not devise this change as a marketing strategy. If anything this tab is the scrappiest of the whole site, but it reflects the way I feel: deeply affected, coping, helping others, and also quite raw.

Having Clear Brand Guidelines and User Personas

Your website is your digital fingerprint, an extension of you. A common mistake, and one I wish I had avoided, is that we often spend too much time comparing and looking for inspiration. The excitement sets in because you have all of these great ideas, and you rush to build a site that has all of the features that you liked from other sites. When you step back to look at your own site, you realize it’s not cohesive.

Having clear brand guidelines and user personas is key to building an effective and sticky website to properly showcase you and your business. Learning from this mistake I created a brand guideline for myself, set a clear set of values, and a mission statement for what I offer on my website. I also developed uniform assets that are used across all of my channels to create brand cohesion. Designing your website is fun. Yet, it can be overwhelming. So, I always recommend taking the time to build your brand guidelines before starting the design process.

The Importance of the Mobile Layout

I wished I’d known that the design for a laptop layout might not fit nicely for mobile and the importance of the mobile layout.

When I first designed my website, I designed it completely from a laptop layout. I did not bother checking the mobile layout. I thought that the website, or at least the theme I am using called Divi, would automatically shrink the page down to the size of a mobile phone nicely.

However, a few months later I realized that the spacing and design for the mobile layout was quite messy and ugly. Spaces were larger than usual, some pictures or widgets were overlapping with each other, and the website looked really untidy and unorganized.

A few weeks after I designed my website, I read multiple articles stressing the importance of the mobile experience and how many visitors access websites on their phones. The percentage could be up to as high as 70-80%. That was when I realized that not optimizing and organizing my website for mobile users was a huge loss in visitors and page views.

After tidying the mobile layout and improving the experience for mobile users, I saw an increase in mobile visitors and pageviews from around 50% to 70-80%. Additionally, the time spent shot up from around 10 seconds to 50 seconds. If only I had known the importance of [mobile layout], I could have gotten and retained more visitors and page views.

The Importance of SEO

I worked with a WordPress designer on my updated website five years ago. At the time, I had a separate business website, which I’d created myself, and a blog on Blogger. I wanted them combined on a WordPress website. I wish I’d known much more about SEO and best practices for naming conventions for all the images on my website.

I’m an interior designer and so my site is very image heavy. I wasn’t aware of how important naming with ALT tags, etc. was for all my portfolio images. Similarly, while I might not have gone back to older blog posts that got copied over, I would have done a better job with new posts including using Yoast, etc. I wasn’t aware of any of these issues and wish I had been.

Make Sure You Get All Your Logins

Make sure you get all your logins. Before you have a website designed, make sure that everything is in your name. Your designer should set up the host and register the domain in your name — not theirs. They should provide you with the login information for your host and domain registrar. If it is set up in WordPress, they should provide you with a login as an administrator. Their agreement should give you the rights to their design and the website content; otherwise, you could find that you cannot access and do not even own your website. This can make it hard if you want to change designers, move your web design work in-house, or have a technical issue you need to address fast.

The Importance of a Good Category and Corresponding URL Structure

One thing I really wish I knew from the beginning, when designing a website, is the importance of a good category and corresponding URL structure. Make sure to think really carefully about what categories you should have, especially what tough keywords (short ones, e.g., “best blenders”) for which you want to rank.

Then, you can create supporting content based on long-tail keywords (e.g., “best blenders under 100 dollars”) that fit your category so that eventually, your whole category will rank higher on Google. However, this is super hard to do as an afterthought. You risk losing spots on Google even if you properly redirect (301) pages to new URLs.

Website and Funnels Work Well Together

You need a website when you want to reach a wider audience and build credibility. With the right SEO strategy, prospects that are not aware of your brand or product can easily find your business on Google and land on your website.

If you have a project portfolio, awards, or customer reviews, a website allows you to showcase it. Another advantage of a website is the blog, where you can publish valuable information to engage with your target audience and share it on social media.

While a typical funnel focuses on a particular buyer persona and has a specific conversion goal, a website is geared toward different audience segments by offering various information.

From my experience, website and funnels work well together, and many successful websites contain funnels. For example, blog pages can serve as excellent funnels to target audiences based on specific interests.

Pros and cons of both?
One of the disadvantages of a website is cost. You need to invest in SEO, content creation, blog writing, and website design itself. Maintaining the website is also an expense. If you fail to update your website and it starts looking abandoned, it will damage your reputation.

A website’s pros are endless, such as brand visibility and credibility, global reach, tangible evidence of your portfolio, and past projects. A website allows you to create valuable content and engage with diverse customer segments in various locations.

On the other hand, funnels help you filter your prospects and ensure that only those that convert stay. They allow you to stay connected to your customers at every stage of the buyer journey. Funnels also work well with email marketing, so you can convince and convert leads using email’s efficiency.

Disadvantages of funnels include the inability to do blogging, very narrow targeting, and lack of access to extra information that customers might need to complete a purchase.

Biggest Difference Between a Funnel Website and a Full Website is SEO

The biggest difference between a funnel website and a full (10+ page) website is SEO. A funnel website is great for a single campaign and can be used as the landing page for different kinds of ads pointing to the page (Facebook Ads, Google Ads). The funnel website drops people right into the buying path with the goal the marketer is looking to accomplish without any sort of fluff. It’s direct, to the point, and great for lead generation. However, a funnel website is not going to be sufficient enough for SEO. Because Google likes to see a lot of content and a full picture of a company including an about page, services pages, contact us page, testimonials page, etc., a funnel website simply won’t rank well within Google.

Contrary to a funnel site, a full website will have plenty of content to rank in Google. A multi-page website gives Google plenty of information to crawl and then rank the site accordingly for its target keywords. The con with a full website, however, is the cost. Where a funnel site could be $500-$800 depending on the requirements, a full website typically starts around $3,000.

Long Term Brand and Trust, vs Just Making a Quick Sale

When you are looking to build a long term brand and trust, vs just making a quick sale or capturing data, is when you would use a website vs funnel.

Websites are more effective long term and easier to maintain. Plus, from an SEO standpoint, they hold more content and rank better.

Choosing between a website vs just a funnel also depends on the product and service, as well as the target audience. For example, for a higher-priced product or service that requires some trust, a website is the right way to go. For a lower-priced or impulse buy, a landing page would be best.

If you’re trying to grow an online presence for your business, you might have considered saving a buck by designing your own website. And why not? There are lots of solutions that make DIY affordable—and even free—and the results seem to look pretty darn good. So what can you lose? We asked a panel of professionals. Here’s what they had to say.

Quality and design are subjective to some extent

Oftentimes, when it comes to website design, the difference between a DIY/free website and a paid/premium design is its functionality. Or more specifically, how clean the code is.

This is very important to note because back in 2010, Google already told us that they use site speed in their algorithms. They also told us to aim for 2-3 seconds or less. But several studies have confirmed that most websites have terrible speed. On average, desktop versions fully load in ~10 seconds, while mobile versions take an average of ~27 seconds to fully load.

A quality website to me means it loads fast. No matter how “nice” looking your website is, if it doesn’t load fast, that’s a low-quality site.

In that sense, you should never sacrifice quality, or in this case, site speed because it affects your traffic and rankings on Google.

Quality is important

People have much more power and ability over making their own website, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that people have the funds or expertise to design an impactful website. In my experience, quality should matter more than a free/DIY website when your main goal is making a website that stands out from the rest. Free/DIY can leave someone to their own devices, and may not guide a user to the full potential of their website.

Quality is important, both in how a website looks, but ultimately its function and ability to achieve the goal of its existence. An e-commerce site that doesn’t get you any sales isn’t achieving its goal. You can achieve a quality website with free/DIY, but what you sacrifice is time to figure it out yourself, and lack of guidance on what makes a good website in the first place. Quality should be at the forefront of anything you do if you’re looking to showcase something you care about, and a website is no exception.

Quality should matter more

Quality should matter more than getting a free site when you already have a proven track record of offline sales and are looking to start selling something online. When you know something already sells and it works, then you should be willing to invest in a site that will do the best job of selling your product online. If it is good enough to sell, it will also sell online, but only if you invest a little to give it the best chance possible.

No target audience

Don’t associate yourself with the target audience of the site. It’s a common mistake for business owners to judge the site design by their taste, even though they might not be the potential users for their product. For example, if one likes sites in retro style and wants a design for the site selling toys for kids, it would be a big mistake to ask for a dusty, black-and-white design instead of the bright, colorful interface that toy-shop customers expect to see.

That’s why my tip is to conduct user research to find out who your target audience is in the first place. If you are not sure how to do that, order the research in a design studio.

Only about looks

Don’t think that web design is only about the looks. Of course, UI (user interface) is an important part of site design, but it’s not all of it. What really matters on every site is the UX (user experience). In short, it’s the feel of the product. Good UX makes it easy and pleasant for a customer to use the site, and, thus, do it longer and/or more often. Usually, when UX is good, clients don’t even notice it, but when it comes to a bad UX (i.e., when products in the cart disappear when you leave the page to keep shopping), it’s always very irritating and makes people leave your site. So, if you think that you can just build yourself a beautiful website in a site constructor, it’s not a good idea, as they rarely have an option to think the UX through or, what’s more important, you [may lack the skills] to do it properly.

Copying another successful site

Copying a successful site’s design is not a key to success. Yes, it’s important to know your competitors and the leading companies in your niche. However, there’s no point in doing exactly what they do. A qualified designer can help you create your unique style so that you can stand out, yet stay attractive for your target audience.

Past clients can’t vouch

When looking for a company to build your website, it’s easy to get caught up in fancy page designs and impressive functionality. But you need to stay focused on the key role your website plays – getting customers. So you need to confirm that the company you are talking to can design a website for you that not only looks great but is amazing at converting visitors into customers. Ask to speak to some of their past clients, and ask them about whether their new design helped increase conversion rates.

Remember that a new website alone won’t make conversion rates explode – work is required on the part of the client to help push conversions – but websites that are designed and built to convert will massively help the process. If the past clients you speak to run specific marketing campaigns with landing pages, ask them how well the landing pages performed.