What makes a website look professional (and what makes it look cheap)

A website's look sends a signal about your whole business before a visitor reads a word. The difference between 'professional' and 'cheap' usually comes down to a few fundamentals — not a big budget.

What reads as professional

• •Clean layout with generous white space.
• •A consistent, small colour palette and font set.
• •High-quality, relevant images.
• •Fast load and flawless mobile behaviour.

What reads as cheap

Cluttered layouts, clashing colours, low-quality or obviously-stock images, tiny hard-to-read text, and slow, janky pages. Any one of these quietly undermines trust — and trust is what turns visitors into customers.