A Digital Strategy Podcast

The 5 Website Principles Most Companies Get Wrong

Episode Summary

The best-looking website in your category can still be quietly broken. It wins compliments, photographs well, and does nothing for the business that paid for it. Symon and Marcello get back to basics with the five website design principles most companies get wrong: clarity, information architecture, speed, copy that ignores the audience, and giving every page one job. Along the way they cover the homepage rebuttal (why a single CTA isn't always the answer), why AI-generated copy keeps falling short, and the one move to make before any redesign. A back-to-basics episode following our three-part series on design systems.

Episode Notes

In this episode:

• Clarity beats cleverness: define the goal and the KPI before the design
• Structure is the real UX: information architecture as the invisible foundation
• Speed is a design decision: real speed, perceived speed, and the three-second rule
• Building for the person who knows nothing about you, starting with ICP work
• Why AI-generated copy keeps missing the mark
• Every page needs one job, including the homepage as a traffic mediator
• Why the first step is always an audit against your ICP

Chapters:

• 0:08 — Series recap and back to basics
• 1:15 — Principle 1: Clarity beats cleverness
• 3:50 — Principle 2: Structure is the real UX
• 6:00 — Principle 3: Speed is a design decision
• 8:40 — Principle 4: Build for the person who knows nothing
• 13:46 — Principle 5: Every page needs one job
• 17:17 — Recap and the first move: do an audit

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