My sites, I make my own, have been on the low tech side. An advantage when it comes to most of the things on your list. No videos and no stock images. No testimonials, I'm not selling anything. I am going to move my social media links to the footer. They really aren't as useful as they once were so moving them is a good plan.
I personally hate animations. All these things sliding in, poping up, flying around drive me crazy. It is fun to play around with all these possibilites but in the end it is just distracting.
Every recommendation - correct- I must have had some of same training as you years ago at the same school :). This one is a bit similar to Point 1 - vague headlines. The client who has a new you beaut product to market and has coined a new you beaut name for it - lets say they have named it "A Wacker". On asking for more information the client replies with - "It's the best big wacker on the market" - - more information please - Well "These are THE BEST BIG RED WACKERS EVER SEEN" . - - Oh, Ok - So please tell me what you do with a Wacker - Well one thing it does really well is - ta dah - it drives nails - - So its a hammer? - Well yes, but we like to call it a Wacker , and they are the best Wackers ever produced - and they are red. The names & details in this story have been changed to protect frustrated website builders who also know a tiny bit about how to get good results for clients, but have clients who really want to use that you beaut name that means nothing to anybody.
Because he just plagiarized this video. Feels kinda dirty now giving a shout out to this guy for the idea. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zdWTUE9-mDk.html&pp=ygUedGFrZSB0aGlzIG9mZiB5b3VyIHdlYnNpdGUgbm93
"We were able to significantly expand our capacity for web projects..." AND split an infinitive. Use correct grammar so you don't lose a segment of the audience. "If only it was true..." No! No! No! Subjunctive mood: "If only it were true..." You might be surprised how many people are gone instantly from a supposedly 'professional' website with such gaffs as this.
Adding email link is my biggest mistake in my designs ( Now I realised where those spam mails are coming to my inbox). Rest I already figured it out and makes verymuch sense. Also make sure to load the pages quickly. That's another very annoying thing keeping people wait.
Very interesting collection of recommendations, Paul. Thanks. Some are a little subjective. But I definitely agree with the stock and generic content use.
From my point of view not all of them "ruining" a website. One hero Quote that is not so relevant to what a website is offering maybe it is triggering for visitors to scroll down and find out more, I liked the Framer Hero Title "The internet is your Canvas" haha , maybe it is wrong but as a visitor it triggered my mind to scroll and discover what it means LOL . About the menu Links you have to keep them with short texts so it is a little be difficult to expand those links especially in my case that I have Greek Characters and one English word in Greek maybe it is 2 or 3 words :p . I agree with the word like "Technology" it is generic but AI Products in the example is ok I think. I totally agree with all the others, like stock images etc.. I believe some of them is not exactly Components that ruining but Components that we have to use them wisely . As we say in Greece "Παν μέτρον άριστον" , it means do it sparingly if I write it correct . Nice video Paul especially for beginners .
An additional one that causes (me) pain and is a very poor user experience; Long Lists - keep your bullet lists, menu items, etc. to 3-5 items. If you have a single menu with 11 items, you have failed.
Sergio Leone made spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood. the characters that played were not the best looking like in other cowboy films. this gave us a very realistic view. what you say about the sites and credibility is very correct. thank you Paul for this useful video 👍
Guilty of 3 of those 10, and in most cases only 1-2. Thge Email links. OMG, Been telling peopel for years TO STOP doing that! Yes, you have an email and YES you want others to have it, bit not the entire world of hackers and spammers. LOL Great video BTW
Credit to who? Spend 5 minutes online and do a search and you’ll find a boat load of sites and videos on the topic. You’ll also find that the majority share very similar points - some less than 10 and some way more. As someone who’s been building sites for over 20 years, I’m pretty sure that none of the items in the list are new. But, I thought it would be fun to pick the 10 I think are the most common and see how many others have or are making those same mistakes. If there was one post or video that was the inspiration for this video I would certainly credit it, as I have done many times before.
It is, but these are guidelines and not rules. Sometimes, we have to use stock images as the client doesn't have or provide good quality images. It's all about balance. :)
I had to giggle when you were talking about stock images, and you then use a piece of stock footage when suggesting a professional photographer be used! But great advice, though 👍👍
Putting that as a priority on your homepage may make Google like you, but making it about you and not your potential clients or customers needs or pain points will have them jumping straight back off. If conversion is your priority, make it about your ideal client - if you want vanity SERPS, by all means leave it there. Use below the fold, the footer or anywhere else that doesn’t detract from your clients needs.
This is true - byt the WPTuts website is being rebuilt, so I'm not spending time going back to edit the current setup. Take a look at learnbricksbuilder.com/ and you'll see that the social media is all in the footer. ;)
Good day, could you make a video about "Shade-inc - media management program". The offer looks very interesting, especially about autotagging. I just don't know if it's not some "Chinese invention" to secretly collect data from private drives. I look forward to your opinion on this subject.
Great Refresher... On my site, I fall in the category of sinless. I've been fortunate to pick these up from your other videos along with different content creators. Ironically, I've had to 'counsel' clients in the reasons why these are important - especially email addresses. Stock images are okay - definitely not preferred - and only if you do some post production work with them. They can also fit sometimes as a low opacity background. I'm not a fan of width determination based on characters - using images and wrapping works well as does good use of list items and proper font emphasis. I tend to keep content blocks < 60% full width and in articles I constrain to about 740px with offset images unless I'm truly after a column layout. Side-by-side columns can work well also for desktop layouts. Just my thoughts - you always have some top-notch content and it's appreciated....
Another excellent video Paul; I'm guilty of 7!! of these errors on some of my sites although thankfully not all in any one site. I'll have to update some. These are good tips for future designs.
Ah, mate, I LOVE that t-shirt!! Brilliant. And great video as usual, thank you. And your point about not using stock images is reinforced at 5:07 & 5:41 when you use... stock footage 🤣
5:42 Things that ruin your video 😝 But I think it's just to test the viewers' reactions, hihi. I wonder if websites with too many animations can also be a no-go, especially with scrollbar hijacking. Something like that is rarely barrier-free. And yes: autoplay videos are *really* annoying, especially when you're on the go with your cell phone and it drains your data volume.
So guilty of most of them over time but slowly improving the one still really relevant is email adresses and email links Love to know more as most clients want them on the site strted using ASE to obfuscate them is that ok or still not good practice?
If they can be obfuscated, then that wold be a good compromise if a client is adamant about having it on the site or you need to include it in the legal pages.
For #6 I've started using forms that fetch the email address after submission so it is never exposed to the site, even in html. This is especially important since scammers/phishers are trying to find a way to get employees to take a action. My company has had people spoofing the director to try and get gift cards. We have had people spoofing HR to try and change direct deposit accounts. Now the staff directory just as a link to a web form to send an inquiry to a specific staff member. Since doing this, we are seeing less of the targeted phishing, especially directed at newer staff.
I aggressively (haha) try to discourage clients from having sliders. I abhor sliders, especially those sliders that serve no purpose. They're just a bunch of pictures without links or text. I usually say something like, "People don't visit websites to watch them like television, and if you have something important to convey a static image with overlay text and a link is quicker to see as opposed to waiting for slide 7 to find out the information." I liked your suggestion about social proof. I also abhor when I go to a site and that bubble continues to pop up on the left-hand side telling me that thus and such purchased the tool. It's even more annoying after I've purchased the tool myself, log in and the pop-up bubble is still active.
