THE ROAST HALL OF SHAME
Eight deadly
website sins.
We've seen every one of these on real business websites. Each comes with a roast and a fix. No names, no shame. Okay, a little shame.
The 9-second homepage
A full-screen video, three sliders and a 6 MB logo. On Indian mobile data, your customer has aged a year before the menu appears.
Fix: Compress images, drop the autoplay video, lazy-load everything below the fold. Aim for main content under 2.5 seconds.
"Welcome to our website"
The most valuable line on your site, spent on saying hello. Your customer knows they're on a website. They want to know what you do for them.
Fix: Lead with what you do, for whom, and why you. "Home painting in Talegaon, done in days" beats "Welcome" every time.
The Contact Us maze
Scroll, click, scroll, a 14-field form, a CAPTCHA with traffic lights, and then it emails an inbox nobody opens.
Fix: A WhatsApp and call button on every screen. A short form that lands somewhere someone checks daily.
The 2016 slider
Five rotating banners. Nobody has ever waited for slide four. Nobody.
Fix: One strong hero with one clear message and one button.
The stock-photo handshake
Two people in suits shaking hands in front of a glass building. Also on 40,000 other websites.
Fix: Real photos of your work, your team, your products. Or good illustration. Anything that's actually you.
"Download our brochure (PDF)"
A 12 MB PDF that opens sideways on a phone. Google can't read it, customers won't.
Fix: Put the content on the page, in HTML. Keep the PDF as a bonus, not the main course.
© 2019 in the footer
Nothing says "we might have shut down" like an old copyright year and last Diwali's offer banner.
Fix: Update the basics every quarter: year, offers, projects, a blog post or two.
No meta description, no titles
Google is left to write your pitch for you, usually from your cookie banner.
Fix: A unique title and description on every page, written for the person searching.