How to Design a Really Bad Website

Here is a list of tips on how to design a very poor website. By poor design, I mean you may possibly get visitors, but they will not remain on your website long. If they do remain, they will not even consider purchasing anything or signing up for your newsletter, since your website will not look credible. If any of these design tips are currently in use on your website, consider a design makeover.

The Home Page
Your homepage is a visitor’s first impression of your website. Make your homepage vague, do not allow visitors to determine what your sites purpose is within the first few seconds. Be mysterious. It is acceptable to boast about how great you or your company is, just don’t explain what it is you actually do.

Consider the fact that not everyone reads from left to right and from top to bottom, try putting your logo at the bottom right, dare to be different. Your most important information of the homepage should be below the fold. Make your visitors scroll down to see your most important text.

Navigation
The first thing you should do is put your menu on the bottom of the page. If you are feeling really adventurous, switch the menu’s location on each page of your website. This keeps your visitors alert. Consider using pictures instead of text on the menu buttons. This works especially well if you use vague icons that could mean almost anything.

You should be sure that you have a lot of sub menus. Make your visitors click at least 4 times to reach the page that they are looking for. This way you know that they really, really want to view that page. Do not worry about breadcrumbs; your visitors will hit the back button repeatedly to get back to the home page. Never include a search box. If you really must have one, make sure it is powered by Google.

Graphics
Load your homepage with animated gifs and very large pictures. While this may slow the pages loading time, people will wait. Make sure that your homepage takes at least 20 seconds to load. Another great way to increase your loading time is to add a colorful background. Single color backgrounds are so boring; consider rainbows or some other graphic intensive design.

Text
The most important text is your welcome to my website statement. Visitors may not stay if you don’t welcome them. Write long blurbs about your company on the homepage. Be sure to tell your visitors why you went into business and show pictures of your employees. Just be sure your text does not let your visitors know how your website can benefit them.

Never break your text into paragraphs that will encourage your visitors to skim down the page. Write your text in a very small script font, or other equally hard to read font. This will make your visitors squint and lean in closer, they like that. If you have a light background, use a light font. Switch fonts often too, this will catch visitors attention. Always center your text, not for headlines, just for the body.

You can also include instruction text for your visitors. For example, best viewed with FireFox – download here. Do not waste your time by checking how your website looks in different web browsers. Your visitors will not mind downloading another browser just to view your site. Do not worry about screen size either, design for the biggest screen size only. Everyone else can just scroll left and right to view your pages.

Extras
You should always include some extra widgets on your website. They don’t need to be relevant. Always include a visitor counter, to show people how popular you are. Add some games, weather gadgets, a clock, and whatever else you like. Music is always a good option. Do not give your visitors the option of viewing your site without music; they may not hear your favorite song. The most important item is to have pop up windows. Visitors love these, so have as many as you can. The pop up ads with speaking characters are the best.

What Not To Include
Never include a privacy statement on your website. Never post your physical address or phone number, especially if you have an e-commerce website. Do not include a site map; it is a waste of your valuable time.

These tips will help you design a Really Bad Website, or a great website for your own amusement. If you want to design a website for your visitors, try doing the opposite of everything suggested in this article. Sometimes we forget that just because we know how to make a Dynamic HTML menu, maybe it just isn’t a good idea. Remember, the simpler the design, the better.

Web Design and Development Professionals

Here are some web design and development companies that can help ensure that you don’t have a badly designed website:

Brat Web Design – Provides web design services for small and medium sized businesses.

Crafted Media – Offers e-commerce web design and development, as well as search engine marketing.

Design Professional UK – UK based web design company that emphasises designs that are search engine friendly.

Emarketers – UK based web development and design company.

GNC Web Creations – Creates custom websites for small businesses.

Higher Dimensions – Offers quality web design and development services.

Hybrid6 – Provides web design and internet marketing services.

Joe Dolson – Accessible web design for small and medium sized businesses.

Whoast – Provides Chicago with high end web development services.

Your Internet Store – UK based company offering everything needed to start a website, from web design to hosting to e-commerce.

Zebedee Creations – Creative design agency that helps clients turn their visions into a great website.

Do It Yourself Web Design

Instead of hiring a professional, you may choose to do your own web design.  There are plenty of quality resources on the internet that can help with that.  Some of them are:

CSS HTML Tutorial – Offers tutorials for beginners about CSS and HTML.

W3 Schools – Comprehensive information on everything needed for web design and development.

Webmasters Help – Forum for discussing web development related topics.

Website Development Training – Lots of articles about website development.

Web Design Tools

These websites make it easier for you to create your own website.

Dream Template – Provides a large number of templates for websites.

eBizWebpages – Offers easy to use website building software.

Goldbar – Offers shopping cart software.

Thrivesmart -Provides website building software.

Webmasters Cavern – Provides menu creators, hit counters and other useful tools for web design.

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