Best/Worst LBI NJ Website Design

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the websites for businesses, organizations, and associations located in LBI NJ. This article is intended to be a resource for business owners and website design companies looking to create a new website, or redesign a current LBI  NJ website design.

In this article we have included the following information:

1. Brief Overview of the Town from a business perspective, and the need for a functional and beautiful LBI NJ website design.
2. Best Website Design examples in LBI New Jersey, along with a detailed analysis of three of the best examples of LBI NJ Website Design.
3. High Potential Examples of LBI NJ Website Design that would do very well with some strategic design/development changes
4. Worst Website Design examples in LBI New Jersey
5. Simple Directory of Web Designers in LBI New Jersey, or web design companies known for their LBI NJ website design work.

Opportunity/Need for LBI NJ Website Design

Analyzing the current business environment and growth opportunities in LBI New Jersey

Long Beach Island (aka LBI) is an 18-mile long island on the coast of New Jersey. The year-round population is around 10,000 but that number balloons to 200,000 during the peak season of summer!

This charming beach town is a family-friendly summer vacation destination and a popular place at Christmastime. The small business environment on LBI is thriving. There are very few big chain stores on the island because the island is covered in successful mom and pop shops and amazing, privately owned restaurants! Long Beach Island offers many great attractions. From the art galleries to the museums, to the surf shops to the seafood restaurants, there is plenty to do on LBI. Viking Village, at the north end of LBI, is the site of an active fishing industry. LBI has a vibrant art scene including the annual Lighthouse International Film Festival and the soon to be reopening Surflight Theatre, where you can see live performances and concerts.

Best of all, Long Beach Island offers a special kind of atmosphere- one that is laid back but never boring. The culture in LBI is old-fashioned, but relevant. Most people fall in love with LBI on their first visit, and they usually make it a priority to go back with their families each year.

Get a FREE DIGITAL HEALTH REPORT To see how your company’s website rates (in 10 key Google Analytics)

Best Examples of LBI NJ Website Design

In addition to the most obvious features, there are many little things that make a website design great and effective. Top marks go to beautiful websites that have useful information AND are doing the types of things that make them attractive to Google, while also providing a positive user experience.

Through our search, we came across an impressive number of good websites, but we also found some of the worst examples of LBI NJ website design.

Here’s what we found:

1. Spray Beach Hotel – http://www.spraybeachinn.com

Numerical Score: 84/100

Design Grade……… B

Features Grade……. B

Content Grade…….. B

Authority Grade…… B

Excellent photos, though we would like to see more photos with people.  The navigation is excellent (we love the attention to detail in the dropdown menus).  The design is ultra-modern and they took a lot of time on many of the inside pages including photos, icons, interesting layouts, and more.  They should consider including testimonials, ratings, and reviews on the main page.  This sort of social proof is an important factor as people make decisions about where to stay.  Their Google ranking, their domain authority, and their directory listings are all very solid.  Someone has been doing a good job of promoting this business online!

2. Kline Bros. Landscaping – http://www.klinebrothers.com/

Numerical Score: 69/100

Design Grade……… D

Features Grade……. C

Content Grade…….. C

Authority Grade…… F

This website meets most of the criteria we look for in a quality website.  Unfortunately, while they may be able to “check off the boxes”, there is a general lack of talent that seems to be present.  The photos are OK, the design is OK, the information is OK.  Basically, everything is fairly average.  They are missing social proof and modern functionality and their online authority is very low.  This site greatly benefits from an overall lack of quality among their local competitors or it would not have made our list of best websites.

3. The Boardwalk of Long Beach Island – http://www.theboardwalklbi.com

Numerical Score: 68/100

Design Grade……… C

Features Grade……. D

Content Grade…….. C

Authority Grade…… F

This site has all the features of a modern design and style.  The photos are large and attractive.  The overall style of the graphics and the text reflects trends in current styles.  There are too many navigation options, they are too close together, the text is too small.  This site would be very difficult to use on a touch screen.  With this type of business, it would be so easy to get a ton of great photos and a ton of great testimonials and reviews.  We recommend they get busy improving these items.  Their overall domain authority and Google ranking is weak.  We recommend adding a blog and begin publishing interesting content regularly.  It would help a lot.

4. Best of LBI .buzz – http://bestoflbi.buzz

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  B

• The focus of this blog site is clearly on the Long Beach Island’s atmosphere, tourism industry, and spotlighting the best local businesses. Very high quality content and info.
• Great website authority here- they’re ranking very well in Google!
• The photos on this site are good quality and fast loading. Most images in the mix look like stock photos but some are original shots taken at the actual locations and shops.
• Thankfully, this website works famously on mobile devices.

5. Acme Beach and Bike – http://AcmeBeachandBike.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• Great photos, thankfully, and they are placed nicely throughout the website.
• The main goal is to call the visitor to action, but this website misses the mark in a terrible way. From the home page, all of the “view products” buttons are broken! Absolutely needs to be addressed if they want to do any sales.
• Why is there virtually no way of contacting this company besides a phone number? Not acceptable – especially as an ecommerce site.
• There are a few outbound links, but not as many as we’d like to see.

6. Marine Max – https://www.marinemax.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• This is a so-so website design. Not bad, it’s but nothing to write home about.
• There is a ton of web pages here, and from a user experience perspective, it’s not too bad of a layout.
• The site loads on a mobile device, which is good, but it’s tough to use.
• The call to action on this site is not very effective. It needs work.

7. Ship Bottom Shellfish- http://shipbottomshellfish.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• Thankfully, this website works on mobile devices, unless you want to see the menus. The web designer took a shortcut and uploaded images. It’s impossible to read the small writing, especially on a smartphone.
• The homepage is fun and interesting- good layout and nice animation on the text.
• There are a few outbound links, but not as many as we’d like to see.
• These photos suck. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. The photos need to go.

8. Mariner Inn – http://marinermotellbi.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  B

• The visual design of this website is terrific. It’s easy to see where everything is at a glance- easy to navigate!
• The pages are full of content, so there is no shortage of information here, but it’s also organized in a way that’s it’s not a turnoff to a visitor.
• This website could use some testimonials or other form of social proof, preferably right on the homepage so there is credibility and reputability right off the bat.

9. Engleside Inn – http://www.engleside.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• There is nothing special about this website design, but we’ve seen worse.
• The photos on this site are high quality and fast loading. Definitely a plus!
• Most obvious mistake is wasting the entire HALF of the homepage above the fold on an ad for another business. I can’t imagine why they’d do that… odd.
• The mobile version of this website needs a lot of work- Not so user friendly, but at least they have a responsive site unlike so many others we’re finding in LBI.

10. Sea Shell Resort & Beach Club – http://www.seashellresortandbeachclub.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• The Call To Action is clear and compelling on this website.
• There were minor loading issues on first try, but it caught up eventually.
• Way too much crowding and confusion in terms of the layout. For example, why does the entertainment tab have three separate options for events calendar, special events, and area activities?
• We found a wealth of information through the pages of this website. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be keyword optimized so it won’t help to draw targeted leads.

11. Long Beach Island Foundation of Arts and Sciences – http://lbifoundation.org

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• Even with the images and other elements, this site loads relatively fast.
• Someone clearly took their time to write up the content for these web pages. It would be a wise next step to establish a blog and consistently post high quality written content with original photos.
• Great for browsing on the go, this site is mobile optimized and works well.
• The layout is standard, and very similar to many other websites we’ve seen.

12. Mancini Realty – http://www.mancinirealty.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• The color scheme and balance of white and blues is great- it looks vibrant and professional.
• Their News page is updated regularly, but it’s treated like a blog more than news. More clarity would be helpful – I was looking for a blog, and I almost didn’t click on this tab, thinking it was a page full of external press links.
• The next step, or CTA, is presented very well and not easy to overlook.
• Extra points awarded to this site for being mobile optimized.

High Potential Examples of LBI NJ Website Design

There are a lot of websites that kind of fall in the middle. They’re not good, but they’re better than others we gathered for this LBI NJ website design study. could be worse. Most of these “high potential” website design examples are placed in this category because they scored low on our evaluation, but the businesses themselves are so great that we see a huge opportunity for success. Here are the websites that we found in LBI that don’t stand on their own yet, but could be absolutely killer if they made the right moves.

13. Surflight Theatre – https://www.surflight.org

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This design is SO horrible, an easy F and worthy of being on the Worst Websites list, but we called it “high potential” because the business itself has a huge opportunity. A long awaited reopening and a great lineup of shows for this year should propel the Surflight Theatre towards success. This website design is probably one of the main things holding it back. Really is a shame!!
• Loud red background with small white font is a terrible combination. The background actually drowns out the logo and it’s very hard to read anything on the web pages. There is so much room for improvement, I barely know where to begin. This business deserves a better website- one that matches the branding and actually makes sense from a digital marketing perspective.
• Do these guys know that Google penalizes sites that aren’t mobile friendly? They’re not going to get ranked well on the SERP. Not just that, but half of the people searching for things to do in LBI are using a mobile device to find info- and this site doesn’t stand a chance.
• The layout and menu is all jacked up. Group Sales actually leads to lunch menus. Someone needs to pay better attention because this is careless work.
• I tried to find something good to say about this site, but I can’t! Even the visitor count bar at the bottom shows how dated this website design is.

14. Bay Village – http://bayvillagelbi.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• This website design looks the opposite of modern… the date in the footer confirms our suspicions… 2011? Time for a serious upgrade.
• Here’s another site that isn’t responsive to mobile devices. That’s reason enough to invest in a new website design, because this site is obsolete and won’t rank in Google.
• What we like about this site is how the branding is carried throughout the design.
• Most recent events here are from summer 2016. They need a dedicated webmaster or at least a capable content manager to keep this site even a little bit relevant.

15. Lighthouse International Film Festival – http://lighthousefilmfestival.org

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• No one can miss the Call To Action, so that’s a great start.
• It’s a clean design, organized homepage, and the branding is right on point. A hero image would be so much better than the scrolling gallery of text-dominated slides. “Above the fold” on the homepage is the most valuable space on a site and this website design fails to use that space effectively.
• One area that hurts the grade big time is the webpage layout, especially under the festival tab. It’s like someone just pasted a ton of content in one long list and it doesn’t have anything to break it up, such as images or dividers or white space.
• The program guide is an eyesore and it doesn’t match the rest of the site. It doesn’t seem to be user friendly at all.
• Last but not least, it’s a mobile friendly site and most pages work like a charm.

16. NJ Maritime Museum – http://njmaritimemuseum.org

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• Finally, a website with an updated blog! There’s tremendous value the content. It seems like they stop publishing offseason which actually hurts them, so they should rethink their writing schedule, but it’s good to see an LBI business committed to creating high value content for their website. It’s rare, and it should be standard if you’re serious about getting people onto your website.
• Social proof is at the bottom of the homepage, which is so important! It shows that this business has won awards and it worthy of your time and attention.
• The layout is not user friendly. It’s not put together strategically. Too much stuff thrown under random menu items. The nav bar needs a makeover.
• Some of the dimensions of images (and the facebook widget) need to be tweaked because they’re throwing off the design.

17. Tuckers Tavern – http://tuckerstavern-lbi.com/index.php

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• This website design looks strange on a computer screen but it works finel on mobile. The static side bar is too wide and wastes valuable space. It looks like a template for responsive sites for tablets and smartphones, but it doesn’t do a good job on a regular computer.
• Great quality images on this site. They definitely didn’t cheat on the photography!
• The Private Parties page is a mess! Not only does the menu open a new window to display a slow loading file, but the other links on the page are broken. It’s a small site to begin with so obvious mistakes like this tend to stand out.
• Don’t click on “Reservations” because you’ll be redirected to Yelp. The most crucial call to action doesn’t even work effectively. Stop taking shortcuts! You’re sending your traffic away before they were done with your site, and they’ll likely not return.

18. Buckalew’s Restaurant Bar & Tavern – http://www.buckalews.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• The red background with tiny white font is back again, and it still doesn’t work. Truly one of the worst combos you could use on a website. Hard to read, and honestly- it’s  ugly. Don’t do this.
• While the site IS mobile friendly, the menu bar (not to be confused with the food menu) is not responsive, which is really strange. So the site is not user friendly on mobile.
• Such a long time to load all of these elements. This is a death sentence.

19. Chowderfest – https://chowderfest.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• Again, we could have put this site on the worst list but since the event is such a big deal, we see the potential in this as an online marketing tool and resource. They could do so much more with this website to make it a go-to place online for LBI tourists and locals alike. What a missed opportunity as it stands now!
• This is a terrible website to look at. The homepage has a weird color combination of yellow, white, and navy fonts. The background is a nondescript photo of a crowd, that pans what you mouse over it. It doesn’t draw you in.
• Here’s another site that is partially responsive: the images scale down for a mobile device, but the menu options do not maintain visibility, so it’s pointless.
• The most important page here is the event info, but half of the info is from last year. Also, the paragraph that draws your attention is one that might scare people off, because it’s talking about reporting suspicious activity. Not a selling point, and it probably doesn’t belong at the top of this crucial page.

20. Beach Haven WaterSports – http://www.beachhavenwatersports.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• The menu on this website is a joke! Literally, we are looking at a homepage and a location page. There is nothing to it. A contact page does exist but isn’t in the menu! How can this be?
• What is the Call To Action? There are no “next steps” for the visitor to take. If “call to reserve” is the best they can do, what’s the point of having a website? You can’t do anything online but find a phone number to call- that’s silly.
• The little bit of written content on the homepage leaves much to be desired. If this business offers so much cool stuff like boats and equipment rentals, and new and used gear for sale, why doesn’t they have web pages full of helpful content and great imagery? Do they offer classes? The lack of info is stunning.
• We appreciate that this site is mobile friendly. But really, what good is this site to anyone on the go. The most they can hope for is a map of the location and some vague information about the rental options. Not worth the time!

21. Fantasy Island Amusement Park – http://www.fantasyislandpark.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This website design deserves a failing grade! It’s one of the worst sites in LBI, but the business itself has so much potential to shine online. That’s why we included it on our high potential web design examples list. There’s a long list of things that need to change, but with the right strategy this website would be gorgeous and very effective.
• First of all, the sidebar with the menu options- it’s a mess. Terrible organization, terrible color and font and size. It stops halfway down the page and just looks like crap.
• Obviously SOMEONE is updating this site from time to time. It used to auto-play an unintentionally creepy carnival tune, and it seems that feature has been disabled, thank God. But if they’re paying someone to manage this site, it really should be overhauled to make it worth it.
• Graphics and photos on this site are the absolute worst we’ve seen in all of LBI. The little clip art features are so outdated. There are a cluster of mediocre photos that are too small to care about anyway. And no elements that draw you in, anywhere in sight.
• There’s nothing good to say about this website design, but being the only amusement park/arcade in LBI gives this business a great opportunity with search engines, if only the site was being used as a marketing tool instead of an example of what NOT to do with your website design. Every single page is ugly, and that is no exaggeration.

22. Daddy O – http://www.daddyohotellbi.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• Really, the website design isn’t terrible but this company deserves better. Despite the interesting vibe to this business, the design doesn’t match up.
• It seems carelessly put together too, because there are typos- even in the meta and one of the page titles, the WORST place to have a typo. It’s not making it easy for Google to rank this site.
• There’s a blog, which is a good step. But it’s treated more like a facebook page with updates and short, time-sensitive posts. This blog would be more useful with high quality evergreen content that helps visitors find the information they want.
• If you look at the bottom of the About page, there’s some brag worthy press, but it’s very poorly executed. No links to the source. It may as well be make believe.

23. The Sandpaper – http://thesandpaper.villagesoup.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• This website design is very old-fashioned, and that’s never a compliment when it comes to the tech world. It’s only a matter of time before The Sandpaper overhauls their site. This is the most popular news source on the island, but their online presence is very poor. It looks like an 1990s design, and it’s not responsive to mobile devices.
• Why is the homepage so insanely crowded? The cover pages of the printed papers looks a lot better than this website does. Too many stories are fighting for attention on this page and there is no clear path for the eye to follow.
• I can’t imagine how much the advertisers are paying for such terrible placement. The ads are jammed onto the right side, not even in a sidebar. Just smacked onto the page, so you’d have to scroll way down beyond the page’s written content to even see the rest of the ads. And who would ever bother?
• The menu and displays are not well thought out. So much work needs to be done here, or else this online media platform may fade out completely with so many new LBI-focused blog sites emerging to cover the current local happenings.

24. The Gables – http://www.gableslbi.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• The color scheme and overall design of this website is consistent with The Gables branding. This business caters to luxury visitors and newlyweds, and the soft color palette and the layers of transparency go along with comfort and romance.
• The most valuable piece of this site is found on the Press page, because they get a lot of local buzz. The page itself is poorly executed though, only showing links to offpage articles. The bounce rate is going to be higher with a setup like this.
• Great job including the honorary awards above the footer- social proof is an important element that most LBI websites lack.
• There are only two posts on the blog, which makes it look like an abandoned project. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to drive targeted leads to your website. If you’re going to have a blog on your business site, make it a priority to learn about content marketing and commit to a strategy and a schedule.

25. Surf Buggy – http://www.surfbuggylbi.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• Nothing here really draws the visitor in. The website design just falls flat.
• There are only two non-product specific images on this website and both of them are pretty bad. Not an effective use of visual content.
• A few indicators suggest that this website is a bit of a hack job. When you click on a rental item, the entire page changes rather than just the image. Something is not right.
• Of course, a big no-no here is the website isn’t responsive/mobile friendly. The layout is a weird one even on a regular computer screen, but this site is absolute useless to half of online searchers because they can’t use it on a smartphone.

26. LBI Fly Kite Festival – https://lbifly.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• Great layout- it’s clean and very well organized. Not much to change there.
• Someone took the time to write up the content for these web pages. The blog is updated periodically. Keywords don’t seem to be a priority, though, on the blog or the web pages. This is a lost opportunity to rank higher in search engines and get organic leads.
• Did you see a call to action on this site and felt compelled? Neither did we.
• Another thing this website could do is add some high quality outbound links.

27. Black Whale Bar & Fish House – http://www.blackwhalebar.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• According to OTHER websites, this restaurant is one of the best seafood places on LBI – but you’d never know that judging from this website. This business deserves a much better online presence to reflect its identity and reputation.
• The design isn’t the worst for a homemade site, but I hope they didn’t pay money for this. It’s not a professional level site.
• Everyone knows a mobile-friendly site is a MUST, but this one doesn’t work. That’s a problem you can’t ignore, from a business standpoint! Mobile devices are a reality.
• Why did they publish a testimonials page if there’s only one testimonial? They’d be better off embedding some feedback from Yelp. This one single review is not enough to make a difference, and it actually hurts the image of the business.
• Photos should be compelling and relevant, but these images are a bad choice.

28. Leanna Theresa Photography – http://www.leannatheresa.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• Oh no! Not another unresponsive website! There’s no excuse for a modern day website that isn’t mobile friendly. Google marks your site obsolete and penalizes you with a lower ranking if your site doesn’t have a mobile version. Not good.
• The images on this website are gorgeous- which is an obvious requirement for a photography website. On the down side, the gallery takes a long time to load. Simple adjustments to the file size and resolution would help tremendously, without compromising the quality of the photos.
• The blog is full of content but it’s not well organized at all. There’s no menu, no list of categories or tags to click on. Most visitors won’t take time to scroll down one long list of a blog so it’s important to make it more user friendly and convenient to find what’s of particular interest to the reader.
• Displaying the packages as a summarized list is really substandard. This page should be treated more like a product page, with bulleted features, a comparison chart, prices and maybe an ecommerce feature to collect deposits or full payment. It’s not horrible but there’s room for improvement!

29. LBI Free Shuttle – http://www.lbishuttle.com/index.html

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• The homepage is a splash of color, fits the brand, and is clear in the call to action.
• Testimonials are arranged right on the homepage and are easy to navigate and read. It’s tough to tell if these testimonials are by real people, because of the way they’re displayed.
• On a bad note, the schedule page has date but no year is posted. It’s not immediately clear if this is the updated schedule or one from last season.
• The format of the site is not ideal, with the trendy “index” style that came and went. It’s cool and minimalistic but there are downsides to not finding every section in the menu when you’re looking for something. No one wants to read a long page to search for info. It should be the click of a button.

30. Artifacts and Company – http://www.artifactsandcompany.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• This site is mediocre in design- the shopping site is much more impressive, but neither of the two really stand on their own. It would be preferable to integrate a shopping cart into the main site instead of pushing people back and forth.
• What a shame this business doesn’t maintain a blog on this site! It would be such a great move to implement a strong content marketing strategy and take advantage of all the niche search terms related to vintage furniture and custom home decor.
• The main site, which is the one we’re reviewing, is not mobile friendly. This kills the site in a few ways including user functionality and visibility in search results.
• The nav bar is very light, and the web pages don’t have much written content either. It’s worth combining the sites and doing a great job managing one, instead of neglecting the main one to focus on the shopping site. This isn’t a good setup for a professional business.

31. Surf City Yacht Club – http://scyc-nj.org/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• The hero image is an odd choice considering the logo that floats on top of it. The predominantly yellow logo gets sucked into the orange tones on the sunset photo. It’s not a good combination, especially at the top of the homepage.
• Way too much crowding and confusion in terms of the layout.
• We found a wealth of information through the pages of this website.
• The call to action on this site isn’t what we would call a recipe for success. It’s easy to overlook the attempted CTAs because there is a lot of distractions.

Worst Examples of LBI NJ Website Design

Choosing the worst websites in a town like this is painful. As a web designer in the LBI NJ area, I’ve seen these types of mistakes over and over that are wreaking havoc on these businesses and killing their SERP ranking. Some of these websites are so terrible that I’m assuming most came free and ready-made with a domain purchase. The mistakes are numerous and easy to avoid if you’re a web designer who know’s what you’re doing.

32. Lavish Salon – http://www.lavishlbi.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This website design is pretty terrible. Even though some pages say “under construction” I’m not holding my breath. The footer was last updated in 2014. Is this company even still in business? Can’t tell from this old looking site. It’s not even mobile friendly.
• The color combo is black, with white and red text.
• Testimonials page is interesting at first, until you realize that you can’t click to enlarge any of the reviews! Good luck reading these handwritten notes.
• The photo gallery has a decent number of images but they take way too long to load. No one has the patience to wait while a photo shows up inch by inch.

33. Julie Goldstein Art- http://juliegoldstein1.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design: F

• The images on this site take a long time to load. So long, that I couldn’t stick around to see them. That’s an easy fix and it’s a detrimental problem.
• There was such an opportunity for something creative, especially because it’s featuring a cool artist, but this website design is just okay. Underwhelming.
• Please don’t make a joke of your contact page! There is literally just a photo and a teeny tiny email address beneath it. That sends a message that you don’t want people to bother you. Not a good move.
• This website is so devoid of written content, it’s almost like it was slapped together overnight. Even IF the images loaded quickly and were captivating, that would not take the place of high quality, search engine optimized written content.

34. Haglers Marina – http://www.haglersmarina.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• What were they thinking, with this website design? It’s really awful.
• Where is the helpful written content? These pages are missing the mark.
• A professional photographer would make a world of difference here.
• The logo and branding isn’t pulled through the rest of the website. This website has “generic template” written all over it.

35. Greenhouse Cafe – http://greenhousecafelbi.com/home.aspx

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This website design is the opposite of modern. Not only is it poorly displayed, but there are overlapping elements and misaligned margins. It looks very amateurish.
• Who has a menu like this? It’s more like an essay. Not legible or visually pleasing even as a printable, let alone on a website!
• Not mobile friendly. Naturally. It’s an old site, and even though it says it’s a work in progress I doubt it will look better unless they hire a capable website designer.

36. Thundering Surf Waterpark – http://www.thunderingsurfwaterpark.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• The site has a long way to go before it graduates from our Worst LBI Websites list. On the homepage alone, there is so much wasted space and the content is the opposite of compelling.
• Doesn’t work well on mobile devices. It’s lacking in basic modern web elements.
• There is no Call To Action on the homepage, and the content is poorly organized. Really not a good picture of a cool place like this LBI waterpark. This business deserves better than this website.

37. Miss Barnegat Light – http://www.missbarnegatlight.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• No one designs websites like this anymore, with a patterned background and a long narrow strip down the middle where the content lives. It’s just not an effective design.
• This looks like a auto-generated site from a long time ago. The elements seen here are so outdated and immediately visitors can tell. Not a good message.
• Visual content and written content are equally poor on this website. It needs work.

38. Blue Water Cafe – http://www.bluewatercafelbi.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• So many loading issues- it looks like it was revised on top of old copies and it has to run through a few versions before it loads up. Horrible!
• On the other hand, the photos aren’t bad at all. But the presentation of them whipping by in an old-school slideshow doesn’t do the photos justice.
• There are some dimension adjustments and cropping issues that should be addressed. If this an intentional design feature, it’s not executed properly because it looks like a mistake in the display.

39. Surf City Marina – http://surfcitymarina.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  C

• It’s an unspoken rule that web designers never add auto-play audio clips to a website. 10 times out of 10, people hate it. This unexpected song needs to be disabled before it startles other visitors, or embarrasses them at work.
• There is a blog on this site but it’s clearly an abandoned project. Only one post is there and it’s not much of post. Content marketing is so valuable, it’s always a shame to see this type of thing.
• The “new inventory” pages have some embedded feature pulling content and photos into the site. This is not visually cohesive, and it’s not filling the page well. It looks totally out of place and the functionality doesn’t seem to be there, either.

40. Spray Beach Yacht Club – http://www.spraybeachyc.org

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design: F

• This website design is the complete opposite of what you’d expect to find at a yacht club. Yacht clubs like this one, where they host weddings and cater to an elite group of sea lovers, are synonymous with luxury and class. This website is beneath them. It kills the expectation and people are less likely to visit the actual place once they’ve been turned off by this site.
• Half of the written content is displayed in tiny white font on a dark blue background. It’s hard on the eyes and doesn’t encourage anyone to read more.
• The “photos” link pushes you onto a different site without warning- also a no no. This setup destroys your traffic because it bounces people off the site and they usually don’t go back.

41. Brant Beach Yacht Club –  http://www.bbyc.net/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• The homepage has no call to action, no next steps, no button to click for more info. This is not a wise use of your first impression. It really falls flat.
• On the good side, there are some beautiful photos on this site. But some pages are overwhelmed by photos and the photos aren’t anything special.
• There’s a much better way to handle the navigation, even when you have a lot of web pages to incorporate. These menus are crowded and the titles are not clear. People want to find their way around the site easily. Finding info with this layout will be way too time intensive for most first time visitors.

42. Van Dyk Group – http://www.vandykgroup.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This is a poor example of modern website design- it’s very outdated. Some pages are overcrowded like the homepage and others are barely filled like the contact page.
• The LBI local association is obviously a helpful part, but covering your site in landmarks like the Barnegat Lighthouse is overkill. The visual elements on this site aren’t very good. Some pages have a lot of small photos and others have nothing.
• Someone took a lot of time to write content for this site, but it’s just not presented in a user friendly, legible way. It seems very random. Click here, and you’ll see a new law. Click there, and you’ll see some kind of tip. It’s not organized well.

43. Woodies Too – http://woodiestoorestaurant.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• We came, we saw, and we left. There is no Call To Action or next steps, and it doesn’t create enough interest to warrant a visit to this restaurant. Everything is mediocre in terms of the content and design, but the logo is pretty neat.
• There are typos here and there, even on the homepage. It looks like the web designer was careless when putting this website together.
• The website doesn’t work for mobile devices which is a big blow. They’ll need a website overhaul if they want hungry people in LBI to find this site online.

44. Hot or Not Yoga – http://www.hotornotyoga.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  D

• Why doesn’t this website look like it was made for the business? Template?
• The drop down menu options are red text on a red background and not visible until you hover. Whether or not this was intentional, it’s not a good design feature from the user experience standpoint. It looks like a mistake.
• The patterned background is so distracting and really not cohesive with the branding. It’s an outdated style all the way around.

45. Lorry’s Island End Motel – http://www.lorrysmotel.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This is hands down one of the very worst websites in LBI! It’s so horrible, I’ve had to share this with others as an example of what NOT to do with your business site.
• The homepage is a mess of journal entries and rambling paragraphs. Nothing appealing that makes someone want to visit or stay overnight.
• The sidebar is an absolute mess of random buttons that leads to more nonsense.
• It’d suggest a total overhaul, but part of me expects this business to fizzle based on the updates we see on this website.

46. Bella Donna Salon & Spa – http://www.belladonna-salonandspa.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• The white little text on the black background is NOT encouraging people to read it. This whole website design is poorly executed and amateur quality.
• The photos are a poor match, except for that one hero image at the top of the homepage. All of the others seem to be randomly selected and lined up along the edges of the pages for no good reason.
• Even though this site has an online gift card ordering option, my guess is that no one uses it. There are so many unnecessary steps and fields and it’s not user friendly. It also doesn’t feel secure- there’s nothing to show the visitor that this site is legit.

47. Viking Village –  http://vikingvillage.homestead.com/

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This site is ugly- there is no better way to say it. Everything from the colors to the gross looking photo of unidentified seafood in a sack, to the crinkle-paper background- the whole design is really not attractive.
• The style and layout wastes space and falls flat in a major way. Nothing compelling, nothing pretty, and nothing that makes me want to click to learn more.
• There are some good ideas scattered around this website to make it a go-to authority site for the local fishermen but the execution is the worst of the worst. An overhaul of the design, a content marketing strategy and high quality imagery would do wonders for this website. It would be like night and day. I hope they revamp this soon.

48. Holgate H20 Sports – http://www.holgateh2osports.com

Overall Score for this LBI NJ Website Design:  F

• This is such a boring homepage for a boat rentals and watersports business. It fails to capture the excitement and fun of the sport. The layout and style is so generic, it could double as a maintenance repair service. There’s no wow factor.
• The call to action is kind of a cheating move. Buttons say to “check the availability” of a model but clicking through  just leads to a contact page. Not a good user experience.
• A modern design would include a responsive design so this site would work on smartphones and tablets. Modern elements include a hero image and nicely organized sections, bullet pointed lists of features, and many other things. At a glance, people can see that this website is basic and outdated, and that will lose their attention.

Directory of local Web Designers serving LBI NJ

Below is a profile of each website designer in LBI New Jersey (physical address is listed as LBI) or any web company who is known for their LBI NJ website design work.

Website Designers in LBI New Jersey
DotCom Global Media http://www.dotcomglobalmedia.com/	DotCom has roughly 20 full-time employees and is a full-service website design and internet marketing agency.  They have been in business since 1995.  DotCom works with dozens of clients in Somers Point and the surrounding area.  Of particular note is their national and international client list working with companies like Nike, Disney, and the New York Yankees just to name a few.  They have won numerous awards and have a stellar reputation.  In October 2016, the founder was honored to be selected to speak at the #1 rated small business conference in the U.S. (Forbes and Inc. Magazine).  This is clearly the top website design company in the entire region.
Evolve Studios www.evolvestudios.com/	Evolve appears to be a small collection of independent contractors and service providers.  It appears they’ve been in business for over 10 years and they serve mostly local clients.  Their work is solid.
JSE Design Studio http://www.new-jersey-webdesign.net/	JSE has been creating poor to mediocre websites for a painfully long time.  Frankly, we are surprised they still make websites.  They are mostly known for their Point-Of-Sale systems and other types of technical support -which we understand is much better than their website design.

Townsquare Media http://www.townsquaremedia.com

Townsquare Media is well positioned thanks to their affiliation with the local radio industry. While the name is familiar with businesses in South Jersey, Townsquare Media is more infamous than famous. Their website designs are stock layouts and the SEO and digital marketing services they offer seem to lack a customized strategic approach. We have only heard bad things about this web design/marketing company. You could get the same quality for much less money with those starter packages that come cheap with a domain name purchase.

While there is no shortage of business activity in LBI NJ, companies actively operating in this town are lacking in the area of effective web presence. This is a missed opportunity both for businesses and for potential customers. Most LBI NJ websites are poorly designed, and worse- they’re virtually impossible to find through online search.

To up your chances for success, get your LBI NJ website design set up the right way on the right platform, with an approach that draws targeted traffic. A beautiful website that’s supported with smart tools and a digital marketing strategy will drastically help your LBI-based business to thrive.

 

By Location: Best/Worst Websites and Web Designers in New Jersey