aka: That One Time You Trusted a Pre-Built Template With Your Brand
You know that moment when you realize your site still says “coming soon”… and it’s been 9 months?
Or when you realize your site hero is still promoting a limited time offer… from last year.
We’ve seen it. We’ve built the escape pod for it.
So let’s talk about those web decisions that seemed smart at the time. The budget friendly, quick launch, no development required moves that made sense in the moment, until they didn’t.
The ‘Things That Seemed Smart at the Time’ Hall of Fame
1. I can do it myself!
You were resourceful. Scrappy. You built a website that worked for the most part. Maybe it was your cousin’s WordPress theme, a Frankenstein of third-party plugins, or a pre-built template you customized at 2 AM.
And at the time? It got the job done.
But now you’re scaling. Your site crashes during promos, breaks when someone adds a new page (if they can even figure out where to add a new page), and loads like it’s carrying the emotional weight that we carried when we were teenagers.
You didn’t build something broken.
You just outgrew it.
2. Skipping Discovery
Why plan when you can dive right into the pixels?
No goals, no user flows, no research. You were basically “vibe coding” your online presence. The result? A site that says nothing to your audience and leads them nowhere.
But that’s okay. You just need a roadmap worth following.
3. Outsourcing to Five Freelancers and a Guy from Reddit
The copywriter knew a designer who knew a dev who disappeared halfway through QA.
Your codebase is held together with hope and duct tape. No documentation. No continuity. And every update is a small gamble against the extremely angry gods of technical debt.
You’re not alone. A cohesive team can make all the difference.
4. No Mobile Plan (But hey, Desktop looks good!)
Nice. Ignoring the 80% of your audience trying to get information from your site on the move, while juggling a toddler, and a latte isn’t ideal.
This was a classic 2010s trap: make your homepage look like a magazine cover (if you say ‘above the fold’ three times in the mirror, you’ll summon a very disappointed me), complete with autoplaying video, 14 fonts, and little to no actual usability.
Luckily these days, mobile first is the standard.
5. Patching Together Your Tech Stack
That quick Zapier workflow? The Google Form buried in your footer? The email signups that might still be going somewhere?
At the time, these were smart, scrappy moves. But now they’re costing you. Every disconnected system adds friction for your team and confusion for your customers.
The result? Missed conversions, inconsistent data, and a digital experience that feels borderline unprofessional.
It's okay, you just need a very cool, patented* tech agnostic approach to help you.
*Not actually patented.
Why This Happens (And Why It’s Totally Normal)
It’s not that the decisions were bad. They were based on what you had: limited time, limited budget, limited staff. You didn’t need a dev team until suddenly, you really needed a dev team.
We get it. Marketing leads juggle 93 to-dos and several actual team members. “Website overhaul” is never at the top of the list… until your bounce rate hits 80% and the plugin you installed 7 years ago suddenly breaks the entire site.
What “Smart” Looks Like Now
Smart isn’t flashy. It’s strategic.
At House of Giants, we build web experiences that:
- Start with clear goals, not guesswork
- Prioritize speed and simplicity (especially on mobile)
- Look like your brand, not like a theme shop knockoff
- ABC…Always Be Converting
Want proof? Read our Homepage Friction post, or our slightly unhinged rant on why page builders are a scam. Or take a gander at what we’re doing in restaurant website design if you’re in the QSR space.
Built From a Dozen “Smart” Decisions That Didn’t Pan Out?
It happens. That’s what we’re here for.
If your site feels like the sum total of too many “efficient” choices and not enough strategy, let’s talk.
We’ll take what worked, scrap what didn’t, and build something that moves the needle.