I think two things when I see an awful website:<\/p>\n
Since I’m not especially interested in being negative, I’m not going to link directly to any examples. I’ll just link to a site that lists some examples. WebPagesThatSuck.com<\/a> itself, in an ugly site, and admittedly so, by the creators themselves. Either as a joke or because they can simply review sites, but do not possess good web design skills themselves.<\/p>\n No one is the master or expert of what they do when they first start out. We all have to learn, and we all learn differently. I can look back now and chuckle at my skill level and it’s a bit shocking too. Lots of us can look back and… what were we thinking? Well, we were thinking from the point of view of someone without enough knowledge yet.<\/p>\n No one likes a big ego or those who put down others and act as if they were born the way they are with supreme expertise. It just isn’t true. The healthy outlook is that we’re always learning and we had to start somewhere. <\/p>\n With that being said, I’ve come a long way (not that I don’t still have a long way to go) in the last 8 years. I did some digging and I put together the oldest version of my very first website that I could. Feast your eyes on my very own super ugly site, hooray!<\/a><\/p>\n Where most people and companies might hide an out-dated site like that for good, I embrace it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, after all. In fact, the best way to learn is to accept your flaws, past and present, and to learn from them. Let’s break down all the mistakes I made with my first site so many years ago:<\/p>\n The bottom line is that I was piecing a website together as best as I could with the limited knowledge I had, which was almost non-existent.<\/p>\n Fortunately, I’ve always been a straightforward, honest, and nice guy. So, at least I admitted upfront that I was learning and I used to take projects on any where from pro-bono to super cheap. We’re talking slave labor (minimum wage no where in sight). But, that is the trade-off and part of the problem why ugly sites exist, I think.<\/p>\n You have the client, an individual, or startup business looking for those free or ridiculously cheap services. And you have the college kid or the self-learning freelancer like myself starving for work, to add to our portfolio, and bending over backward for chump change, to get in experience, any experience.<\/p>\n I remember working on a project for three months, all for only $300! No joke. Sadly, that’s how some of us that didn’t know any better started out. Now I understand from the other side all the times other, skilled professionals were upset with me. Because it creates such a problem in the industry that I now have to deal with myself. Simply, I can’t compete with those cheap prices anymore. <\/p>\n Now that I am a proper professional (with all confidence in saying that), those conditions are just not tolerable anymore. I have the skill set that I know a client really needs and yet that $300 is too tempting compared to my $1,000+ quote. What they’re going to end up with is a severely ugly, non-SEO-friendly, slow-loading, non-functional website. <\/p>\n They might live with it for a while, which only serves to hurt them until they eventually go under and let the site die. Or, if they are making it they’ll now pay the right price and get their site done right. In the long run, they always pay more.<\/p>\n There are a few more culprits to consider. Sometimes the client is very much willing to pay a decent amount, but gets shafted by a crook. Someone who charges $4,000 that comes into the agreement with amazing promises and guarantees. Then they simply upload a cookie-cutter template and you never hear from them again.<\/p>\n Another issue is offshore outsourcing (to India or China for example), but that’s a whole other debate.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there will never be a shortage of shady or crummy “professionals” on craigslist. Likewise, there will never be a shortage of people that are somehow eluded by the old saying: “You get what you pay for.<\/em>”<\/p>\n Fortunately, a website can always be redesigned. The first thing I’m always asked when redesigning a website is “Will SEO be included?<\/em>” Good web design is<\/em> SEO-friendly by default, in the code. Whether you’re getting a new patio or a website, put your research in. Portfolio and testimonies are what’s important… then price.<\/p>\n UPDATE<\/strong> \u2014 Looks like my days of ugly creations isn’t over yet! I even made the top 10 ugly list here<\/a> with my theme BlankSlate<\/a>, woohoo!<\/p>\n Have any ugly website experiences you want to share?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How does it happen? I think two things when I see an awful website: They must not know? Perhaps they got screwed over by some 13-year-old kid in his Mum’s basement that claimed to be a ‘professional’? Since I’m not especially interested in being negative, I’m not going to link directly to any examples. I’ll … Severely Ugly Websites<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[206],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-web-design","tag-web-design"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webguy.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}We all suck at first.<\/h2>\n
\n
Unfortunate victims.<\/h2>\n
What’s the solution?<\/h2>\n