How to Declutter Your Website Menu
Feeling a little cluttered lately? If your website looks overcrowded, too “busy” or blindingly bright and flashy, it is highly unlikely that your site is performing as it should. In fact, you could even go so far as to say that your cluttered website:
- Distracts from your brand.
- Confuses your customers.
- Increases bounce rates.
- Stifles conversions.
Drives your consumer base to your competition.
The good news is that less is more and minimalism reigns in today’s cyber society. Your customers aren’t interested in random, meaningless functions or obnoxious animations and imagery. Your website is a virtual storefront for consumers who expect a more intuitive experience. A cleaner website makes for an expedient presentation to customers looking for information fast! Simple, clean websites have the power to:
- Leave consumers with a positive impression of your brand.
- Compel consumers to interact with your brand.
- Make it easier to explore your content.
- Lead consumers along your sales funnel.
- Increase clicks on your CTA (call to action) button.
- Boost conversion rates.
Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to remove excess “clutter” from your website in order to make for a more compelling, user-friendly experience. Start by removing unnecessary graphics, pointless images which serve no purpose and fail to reflect your brand and irrelevant content and subheadings.
Simplify your main menu by condensing options. Keep the important links only such as “Services/Products”, “About”, “Blog” and “Contact”. Don’t make your customers jump through unnecessary hoops in order to locate simple information. Avoid a pesky mega menu stocked with numerous categories and sub links. Be sure your linking strategy is clear and incorporate secondary links in the drop-down menu and in the footer of your website if applicable. In addition, consumers spend an average of 45 seconds on a website. Internal links which connect users to alternate pages on your website are valuable as they can increase the amount of time consumers spend on your website. External links can also be valuable for improving SEO (search engine optimization), however too many links can confuse consumers. Closely evaluate the purpose and necessity of each individual link to determine which ones fulfill your goals! Think strategically!
Consider every screen by optimizing your website for all devices: smart phones, desktops, laptops, IPads, etc. Test your website on all platforms to ensure it is clear and orderly whether viewed on a tablet or a desktop!
Evaluate your content and readability:
- Avoid “fancy” fonts that are difficult to read.
- Be sure your content is engaging, employing strong SEO techniques.
- Evaluate your website for a pleasant color scheme that isn’t too harsh on the eyes.
- Check for an obvious, well-placed CTA (call to action).
- Consider average sentence length and word syllables.
Efforts to maintain a simple, clutter-free website comes with a big payoff! Enjoy improved website performance, smoother navigation experiences and greater conversion rates, all of which go to improving your bottom line!
5 Ways to Keep Your Website Content Fresh
Feeling a bit stale lately? Is your website content a tad outdated? Are your blog posts still relevant to your central marketing message?
If you are boring yourself to sleep perusing your own business website, then this post is for you! Here’s the bottom line: fresh, relevant content which accurately reflects the theme of your marketing strategy helps to build trust between you and your customers! You can’t afford to let your content go stale and maintaining a fresh approach isn’t as hard as it might seem.

Language plays a HUGE role in the maintenance of fresh content. Cultural lingo changes with the wind and what was once considered “righteous” is now deemed “cool”. Words are powerful and if you’re not speaking the language of your people (a.k.a your customers), you are automatically dating yourself and age is so much more than a number in this particular case. In addition, today’s language style has been redefined as one of inclusivity. With all of the social changes occurring regarding gender equality, for example, you need to ensure that your content speaks to your entire audience and that you aren’t inadvertently excluding or alienating customers with your material.
Jokes which were socially appropriate ten years ago are not likely to be acceptable in today’s age of enlightenment. Whether you subscribe to this philosophy or not is moot. Your business needs to be adaptable to social changes and the desires of your consumers regardless of your personal preferences and your website content needs to reflect current relevance.
While no one is trying to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious, CHECK YOUR DATES! The truth is that many business owners fail to change the dates on refreshed or recycled content. In other words, if you are planning to pull an old blog post from out of your “file” because the content is still relevant, for Pete’s sake, change the date! There is nothing worse for a new prospective customer who thinks they’ve found the answer to their problems in one of your posts only to discover the content is dated November 3, 1982. This leaves the consumer highly doubtful that the content is still relevant and they will move on to your competition who has updated material posted on their website. I can attest to this personally. Christmas shopping was rough for me when I discovered that a major 50% offer on a website expired the previous year. I won’t be doing business with THAT company. Consumers believe that true professionals don’t make rookie mistakes!
This might seem off topic, but when was the last time you watched the news or read the paper? Asking for a friend… Seriously, though, do you even know about the latest change to your entire industry? Are you up-to-date on new services and products you should be offering and have you taken any refresher courses or undergone updated training? The most successful business owners understand that it’s crucial to stay in the know and that lifelong learning is fundamental to a successful, booming business.
A simple perusal of Google can go a long way in keeping you apprised of new developments in your field which will impact your website content. Nothing says “I know my stuff” like a business owner who boasts about the newest trends in their field of expertise. Afterall, this is exactly the kind of material consumers long for! They want to achieve expert status, too! Perhaps you should set aside time each day to check out the local paper or consider a subscription to a magazine which is relevant to your field of expertise. Stay in the know!
Update those links! God may have blessed the broken road, but He cannot abide a busted link leading straight to nowhere! Okay, maybe we should leave religion out of this, but the point stands! Blog posts can be racked with broken links and nothing deters consumers like brokenness.
Broken links automatically place your website at a disadvantage by wrecking the customer’s experience with your brand and destroying your rank on search engines such as Google. The greater the amount of broken links on your website, the greater your status will plummet in search engine rankings.
I know I said I’d leave religion out of this, but it’s time to ask, “What would Jesus do?” The answer: He’d fix what’s broken. God bless!