The Boring Website Checklist
Does your business website produce sales or snores? Review the factors that determine whether your site gets A's or Zzzzzz's.
Content
Boring: Lots of industry jargon only you can understand.
Rip-roaring: Plain English.
Boring: Corporate speak; words or phrases like "synergy" and "deep dive".
Rip-roaring: Plain English.
Boring: Long sentences that vaguely convey several inconsequential ideas.
Rip-roaring: Short sentences that sharply convey one important idea.
Boring: Product- and company-focused content.
Rip-roaring: Customer-focused content.
Boring: Expository, third-person writing.
Rip-roaring: Conversational writing that tells a story.
Boring: Content that takes itself way too seriously.
Rip-roaring: A lighthearted style.
Boring: Adjectives.
Rip-roaring: Verbs.
Design and Typography
Boring: Stock images that tell the same old story.
Rip-roaring: Custom images that tell your story.
Beyond boring: No images.
Rip-roaring: Images.
Boring: Bland color schemes.
Rip-roaring: Bold accent colors.
Boring: Overly wide or narrow margins that make reading difficult.
Rip-roaring: Line lengths suited for readability. (In the 600 pixel area.)
Boring: Uniformly styled headlines.
Rip-roaring: Distinctive styling for each type of headline.
Boring: Sites where every page looks alike.
Rip-roaring: Sites with unique page templates for various sections of content.
Boring: Long paragraphs with undifferentiated text.
Rip-roaring: Short paragraphs peppered with bold text and bullets.
Strategy and Structure
Boring: Sites without a call to action.
Rip-roaring: Sites that tell me what to do.
Boring: Deep page hierarchies that force me to click and click and click to find what I need.
Rip-roaring: Navigation that puts the info I crave never more than a click or two away.
Boring: Pages that take more than 10 seconds to figure out.
Rip-roaring: Pages whose purpose is immediately obvious.
Boring: Unsocialized sites.
Rip-roaring: Sites with a blog, social sharing and user-submitted content options (such as blog commenting).
OVER TO YOU
What have I missed? What makes a site boring to you?
