What slop looks like in agencies and freelancers
A hero that promises to "elevate your brand", a services grid with the same three icons every agency uses, a portfolio of mockups rather than shipped work, testimonials from first names, and a process diagram with four circles. The agency's own site is the sample of its work, which is the problem.
What a designer would have done
Show shipped work with the client named and linked, one case with a before and after, the people who did it, and a sentence about what the agency refuses to do. An agency site is a portfolio piece; it has to look decided.
Tells to check first
- The conveyor belt: Hero, three features, a testimonial row, a pricing table and a final call to action, in that order, with nothing specific to this business anywhere in the sequence.
- Three icon cards: A row of three identical cards, each with an icon in a tinted rounded square, a four-word heading and two lines of text that say the same thing three ways.
- Testimonials from Sarah J.: Quotes from "Sarah J., Marketing Manager" and "Michael T., CEO", with generated portraits, praising the product in the product's own vocabulary.
- Not one real photograph: Nothing on the site shows this business's actual place, people, product or work.
- The swap-test headline: A headline of the form "Innovative solutions for your business" or "Your reliable partner for X": swap in a competitor's name and nothing changes.