Ten Cringey Digital Practices

In case you missed it, your favorite digital marketing agency turned TEN last year. That’s us. Tegan. We’re ten! But no worries if you forgot to send a card. We will gladly accept belated birthday checks and presents. See our website for the mailing address.

In honor of the decade, we talked through the ten most cringey digital practices we see from time to time. Our team works hard to create stand out digital experiences, so when we come across websites that look like our old MySpace accounts, a little part of our soul dies.

Preface. This list is not passive-aggressively targeting any of you. But if you identify with one or many of these practices, maybe it’s time for an upgrade? We may or may not know just the right people for the job.

🎨 Clip Art Animation
If your pages transition with swirls and twirls, no one is thinking “this looks professional.” Everyone is thinking, “this looks like the PowerPoint I made for my 7th grade history project.” Sigh. There are about a million better options out there.

🎠 Carousel Slider in the Hero
Free tip. This is super outdated. Plus, site visitors don’t hang out at the top of your landing page long enough to click through a slide show. Too many competing messages = too confusing = closing out the site quickly.

🐦 Old School Social Links
On the bottom of most site’s pages, social links are provided to Facebook, Instagram. Twitter, etc. This is fantastic practice except when these links show the social platform’s logo from 10 years ago. Yes, it’s such a minor detail, but it really does give off that “I’m a cool mom” vibe, and no one wants that vibe.

🔤 Poor Font Choices
Say it with us, “Comic-Sans is no longer an option.”

📚 Too Much Copy
It takes the average visitor .05 seconds to form an opinion on your website. If it’s covered in dense paragraphs of industry jargon and complex terms, chances are, they’ll close out quicker than they came in. Think short, clear and concise.

🦑 Unclear Message
Within the first two seconds, it should be crystal clear what your platform is advertising. If your website looks like a five-star resort but you are trying to sell sneakers, something’s not lining up.

🗺️ A Never-Ending Click Trail
Drop-down menus are great! Drop-down menus a mile long are NOT great. If it takes twenty nine clicks for a visitor to find some valuable information, you’re going to lose them. And they’re going to lose their clicker finger.

🐟 The Ultimate Catfish
An amazing landing page is… amazing. But if you click into the site, only to find garbage everywhere else, that just feels cheap. And wrong. And uncool.

👻 Who Ya Gonna Call?
Contact information should be clear, accessible and incredibly easy to find. Treasure hunts are for treasure, not for emails.

🖇️ Broken Links
Of course, this is going to happen from time to time. But 99.9999% of the time, every link on your live site should be in working order. No. They don’t get holidays. Or PTO. It’s a harsh reality, but it is what it is.

We could go on and on, but the theme here is TEN. And we love a good theme.

If you feel personally victimized by this list, take heart! We’re here to help. We love creating non-cringey digital experiences. Websites, apps, marketing strategies, rebranding- we’re sort of a jack of all trades in the non-cringey digital sphere. We promise, that’s the last time we’ll say cringey.