Creative ways to destroy your website

Use those “professional” stock images

You know the ones with “business professionals” shaking hands! or the lady with the headset? don’t forget the globe for your homepage! This will really make your site POP!
This will make you and your 2 business partners who work from the coffee shop look like a real corporate company.

My advice:

Stay clear of stock websites until absolutely needed. Hire your own photographer instead, its not as expensive as you think.

Stop trying to be someone you are not! Read this article by Seth Godin to get some perspective on how small companies are actually better off than larger corporations. You should be embracing who you are instead of trying to act like someone you are not.

Don’t you DARE touch the “corporate identity”!

Even if your logo has been created by your CEO’s grandson in Wordart, don’t you dare touch the logo. If you change your logo, your customers will forget you forever! EVER!
The logo should never change!! never!! you are not a good designer if you edit your logo!!

My advice:

Logos that live forever are actually very good logos that don’t need to be changed. If you have a logo that your designer is dying to edit, you can be confident that your logo stinks more than your feet. Get a new identity!

Add everything above the fold!

No one scrolls on the internet! scrolling is so web 1.0! Nowadays everything should fit above the fold!

My advice:

Its a Myth. Here is proof

Use sliders & accordions on every page to make your website more “interactive”

Jquery is what all the cool kids on the block are smoking! Add a slider on every page! Better yet, your logo can drop into your website as if it fell from the sky!

My advice:

A slider is not the only way to display information fast. Get creative and try something new.

Get free or unreliable hosting

Why pay for hosting when you can get unlimited hosting for free?

My advice:

Make sure you don’t fall for the “unlimited” bullshit. If you have the slightest technical knowledge, you will instantly figure out that it is impossible to use more than a couple hundred MB of space even if you are hosting huge websites. The performance of your website depends on a lot of other factors which these free & cheap hosts do not offer.

Add all sorts of widgets to your website

You know the Facebook, twitter, Google friend connect, meebo & other widgets really help your users engage with you.

My advice:

If one or two of these widgets are used and well executed then it might actually help but most of the time these widgets are simply annoying. Dont use them!

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