Does your website spark joy?

General Advice, Marketing

If not, then maybe it’s time to “Marie Kondo” it. Just like a home you’ve been living in for a couple of years, your website can also get cluttered. Perhaps when you started out you only had two or three pages with nicely laid out images and copy, but as time went on it probably became a bit of a Frankenstein monster with bits bolted on in a haphazard way. For example, you may have noticed that your home page gets the most traffic, so you started adding additional services, features, explanations, products, customer reviews etc… and now have to scroll for days to get to the bottom of the page. Then you added a blog, because every business needs a blog, right? You added to your About Us page as new people joined the company – and forgot to remove those who’ve left. You heard that videos are the new in thing so you added videos, secretly hoping at least one of them would go viral. Does any of this sound familiar? Most people associate clutter with the feeling it triggers, the sense of being overwhelmed, so your visitors will appreciate, and reward, a freshly tidied, updated site.

Here are 4, Marie Kondo-style tips to help you declutter your site.

1. Start with your home page

Type in your site url and close your eyes while it loads, now, open your eyes. Is there something that immediately catches your eye, or is your page cluttered and unfocused? New visitors should immediately see what you offer and how it benefits them. They will not go on an easter egg hunt to figure this out. Does the first thing you see help you achieve your primary goal? If not, it’s time for a redesign.

2. Let’s get navigating

Pretend to be a first-time visitor on your site, is it easy to find what you want? Or is it an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole experience. As time went by, you likely added sections and pages to your site and your navigation structure probably got scrambled with sub-menus within sub-menus within menus. Clean it up.

3. Now the sub-pages

Each sub-page should have its own primary goal, such as, explain a service, sell a product, provide information… make sure your sub-pages are specific and focused. Any rambling into multiple objectives needs to be split into separate sub-pages. Not only does that help your users find things, but it enhances your SEO too.

4. About's and Contact's

If your About Us page isn’t a goal-oriented sales page that focuses on highlighting your unique selling points, your story and your brand, you are missing out on making a strong impression on curious prospects. Next, make sure your Contact page provides all of your contact information (but drop that fax number) and make sure that the process of getting in touch with you is simple. If your form is too long, your prospects won’t want to fill it out. Ain’t nobody got time for long contact forms.

So, what do you think, will these tips work for you? We’d love to hear about it so if you are going to give any of them a try, please let us know in the comments section below.

If you’d like some help decluttering your website, get in touch, I’d be happy to declutter it for you.