Simplicity is key! Especially concerning websites because it makes them look sleek, reduces navigation confusion, and also helps for more of an enjoyable customer experience.

Don't fret if your website is overwhelming at the moment, the steps it takes to simplify your website are actually pretty simple (see what we did there?)

If you are ready to start simplifying your website, read on below for some tips on how to achieve this!

Step 1: Only Use The Essential Elements

Even though this step seems super obvious, there are still a ton of websites that fail to recognize this and because of it, their website is a big mess. Sometimes it gets really hard to prioritize the content that you actually want to display versus putting too much up. 

One rule that we wanted to touch upon is the 80-20 rule. The key is to focus on displaying only 20% of the site's elements that is delivering 80% of the results. Find out what drives your customers to your website and then solely focus on that type of content to maximize new visitors and the customer experience.

This rule will really help you simplify your website and get rid of the unnecessary clutter of content that isn't relevant to the user. By reducing the reasons for your users to click away from your website, you now have a bigger opportunity for new growth.

Step 2: Say Bye To Unnecessary Elements

To continue on the 80-20 rule, now that we know to only focus on the essential elements, it is time to get rid of everything else. That could mean removing social sharing elements, pop-ups, gallery slideshows, etc. Basically, anything that is cluttering your website and isn't the driving focus of your website has to go.

Step 3: Reduce Pages

One thing that we see way too often if an overload of pages on websites. Most of the time it is just overkill and could be simplified from 15 pages to 8. It is super important to trim your page count because you don't want your user to just be aimlessly clicking around your website and not knowing where to go.

Place yourself in your visitor's shoes. If you stumbled upon your website, what are the key pages and areas that you would want to visit? For example, where can they find out who you are, get in touch, read about your services, etc. Don't keep unnecessary pages on your website just to have them. 

By reducing the number of pages on your website you make it a lot easier for your visitors to navigate to where they need to get to, plus your navigation menu will look a lot cleaner as well.

Step 4: Move Your Content On Up

Having your visitors endlessly scroll up and down your website is a sure fire way to make sure that they never actually see the content. Most users only look at the content that is on the screen that is presented to them. If they have to keep scrolling, they simply won't get to the content.

Move your important elements so that they show up on the first page/section of the website for the visitor to see. We're not saying that everything has to be packed into a single section/page, but just keep in mind that you want to display a hierarchy in your content so everything that is super important for the visitor needs to be up top.

Step 5: Be Picky With Your Colors

If you want to simplify your website design in terms of content, you also want to do so in your color scheme. The colors are totally up to you in terms of your branding, however, it is best to stick to no more than 2-3 colors. 

You don't want your color choices to distract your visitors, so having them simplified to 2-3 will greatly help you keep everything on brand and not invasive to the visitor.