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I worked for a sketchy MMO site back in the day (MMOEdge), and my friend who ran the site paid $20k for a very professional and slick-looking pre-built site fro
by vocatus_gate 10y ago
I worked for a sketchy MMO site back in the day (MMOEdge), and my friend who ran the site paid $20k for a very professional and slick-looking pre-built site from a team in Australia. It looked really good, much better than the old amateur-looking site that was currently running. But when he switched to it, he found conversion rates went down, by quite a bit actually. We couldn't figure it out and eventually switched back to the old "cheap" looking site, and traffic was restored.
There's something about looking TOO professional that turns people away, I guess.
- 099182919 10y agoI find most "Web-2.0" websites childish and amateurish-looking. It's really a matter of taste. The Bloomberg site looks cheap to me -- just like a tabloid in the supermarket. It looked much more trustworthy a couple of years ago.
- fludlight 10y agoI felt the same way 10-15 years ago when the WSJ print edition started using color on the front page.
- jacquesm 10y agoI suspect that Craigslist would suffer the same way if they ever really changed. After all, that guy Craig whose list this is is not the same as some corporate slick entity and it makes it all look more genuine.
- vocatus_gate 10y agoMaybe it's that the semi-unprofessional look implies a personal connection, like it's just "that guy Craig" like you said, vs. an impersonal and polished corporation.