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In this episode, Justin Hinkle makes the case that DIY websites don’t look DIY because of the platform — they look DIY because of specific patterns that repeat across sites built without a design background. He calls these the Amateur Signals, and walks through ten of them in detail.
Justin covers font chaos and why templates don’t protect you from it, inconsistent spacing and how to apply a system instead of adjusting things section by section, sections that don’t connect to anything and why they dilute the page, unclear visual hierarchy and what contrast actually does, generic copy and why specificity is the fix, stock photography that reads as stock, color problems in two forms, overcrowded navigation, page-to-page inconsistency, and the scope problem of having too much on the site. He closes with a priority order — fonts and copy first, then consistency, then fine details — so the work is approachable rather than overwhelming.
1. The Amateur Signals create a feeling visitors can’t name but definitely feel When a site has the DIY quality, visitors experience it as a vague sense that the site is unpolished or that they’re not quite sure about you — not as a list of design problems. That’s what makes the signals hard to detect from inside your own site. Understanding specifically what creates the feeling is what makes it possible to fix.
2. Font inconsistency is the most common signal and one of the fastest to fix DIY sites accumulate fonts over time — different sections, imported text, manual adjustments — until the typography has no clear system. The fix is two fonts applied consistently everywhere using the global font settings in your builder, not section-by-section overrides. It’s fast to address and the before-and-after difference is immediately visible.
3. Generic copy is one of the strongest Amateur Signals “Passionate travel advisor dedicated to creating unforgettable experiences” could be on any advisor’s site anywhere. It says nothing specific. Professional copy is specific because it goes through a process: who exactly is this for, what is their specific situation, what does this business specifically offer. Slowing down to answer those questions — and then writing the answers plainly — is what makes copy feel real rather than templated.
4. Page-to-page inconsistency makes a site feel disjointed Different pages built at different times end up looking subtly different — different fonts showing up in different places, spacing applied differently, layouts that don’t quite match. Visitors feel this as a sense that something shifted when they clicked through. The fix is a page-to-page audit: pick the homepage as the reference and standardize everything else against it.
5. Fix in priority order: fonts and copy first, then consistency, then details Not everything needs to happen at once. Font cleanup and headline copy are the highest impact relative to effort. Page-to-page inconsistency and navigation cleanup come next. Spacing and color are real but subtle — address the more visible things first. If the site still feels off after working through the list, that’s usually the signal that outside eyes would help.