I’m Done Building Generic Websites

I have been building websites for more than 15 years.

That is long enough to remember when simply having a reasonably polished website felt like a competitive advantage.

It is also long enough to become very tired of websites that all look exactly the same.

You know the formula. Big headline. Generic hero image. Three boxes. A testimonial strip. A call to action. Swap the logo, change the accent color and technically you have a different site.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that structure. Templates exist because familiar patterns work.

The problem starts when the template becomes more important than the subject.

I am done building that way.

Generic Sites Start to Look Like Everybody Else

The internet has gotten much easier to build.

That is a good thing.

WordPress themes, visual builders, design systems and now AI can get somebody from a blank page to a competent website much faster than when I started. The downside is that speed encourages sameness.

It becomes very easy to start with the same layout, the same spacing, the same section order and the same visual language every time.

Eventually the food site, the travel site, the software company and the paranormal project all feel like they came from the same template library.

I do not want to build another site where the logo is doing all the work of creating an identity.

The Subject Should Drive the Design

The question I ask much more often now is: what should this subject feel like?

Not what does the template allow.

What should the visitor feel when they land there?

That changes the decisions.

A site about unexplained stories can carry more atmosphere and tension. A local food site should make you hungry and make it effortless to keep discovering places to eat. A barbecue site can feel warmer, heavier and more tactile. A real-estate project needs trust, clarity and useful location context. An art project can be more expressive without making the content harder to use.

Those are different jobs.

The websites should look like they understand that.

Paranormal Should Feel Different From Food

Some of the projects I have been rebuilding lately make this obvious.

Paranormal Unknown should not feel like Houston Food Fanatics with a darker color palette.

Pit Culture should not feel like a technology blog with barbecue photography.

Space City Home Tours should not borrow the same rhythm as Painted n Created simply because the same person is involved in building them.

The subject gives you clues.

Typography can change. Photography can change. The density of information can change. The way cards behave can change. Even the pace of the page can change.

The goal is not to make every property visually wild.

The goal is to make it appropriate.

That was one of the motivations behind building a network of focused media brands instead of forcing every interest into one generic container.

A Site Can Be Distinct Without Being Difficult to Use

There is a temptation when talking about unique design to make uniqueness the goal.

I do not think that works either.

A website still needs to be understandable.

People should know how to navigate it. Text should be readable. Search should work. Mobile should not feel like a compromised version of desktop. Pages should load quickly enough that the design does not become an obstacle.

I care about personality, but I care about usability more.

The best version is when those two things support each other.

The design can tell you what kind of place you have entered without requiring you to learn a new interface every time.

That is harder than copying the same system everywhere, but it produces better sites.

AI Makes It Easier to Explore, but It Also Makes Generic Easier

AI has expanded the number of directions I can test before committing to one.

I can work through layouts, research visual references, explore technical approaches and prototype ideas much faster. It has also made modern development much more accessible to me beyond the WordPress work I have done for years.

I wrote about that shift in what I have learned using AI to build websites and marketing systems.

But AI introduces the same risk as templates.

If everybody starts with the same prompt, accepts the first polished output and moves on, the internet can become even more generic, just faster.

The tool does not automatically create identity.

Somebody still has to decide what the site is trying to say.

Content Depth Matters More Than Decorative Differences

The easiest way to fake uniqueness is decoration.

Change the font. Add animation. Put a texture in the background. Make the buttons a strange shape.

None of that matters if the site does not have anything worth exploring.

The most important difference between the projects I am building is the content itself.

A useful Houston food site needs real restaurant stories, videos, discoveries and context. A paranormal site needs locations, stories, creators and responsible reporting. A travel property needs places, maps, practical information and a point of view.

Design should make that material easier and more enjoyable to explore.

It cannot substitute for it.

That is why I increasingly start with the question, “What does this site need to contain?” before “What should the homepage look like?”

I’m Building Websites I Actually Want to Visit

That is probably the simplest explanation for the change in how I approach this.

I want the sites I build to feel like destinations.

Not because every page needs to be dramatic, but because there should be a reason to keep clicking after the first answer is found.

The subject should be visible in the choices.

The content should feel connected.

The design should make the experience better instead of announcing that somebody discovered a new template.

I have built enough generic websites.

The tools are better now. The range of things I can create is wider. And I have enough different subjects in front of me that repeating the same formula would be the least interesting thing I could do with them.

So I am not chasing uniqueness for its own sake.

I am building websites I actually want to visit.