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Don't let your website get cluttered

One of the biggest website hurdles to overcome is that of a cluttered website. The information is great, and it's there, but it's not easy to take it all in. Here are some common comments from websites that are too cluttered:

my website is too busy
it's too hard to find information
there's just too much stuff
I don't know what to click on

We know the information is important, and it has to be there. So how can you present it better? Here's some ideas that we think will help you.

1. Create a Site Map

When your website has lots of information to present, it's very helpful to organize it by categories. Here is an example site map:

Home
About Us
- Our Company
- Our History
- Our Staff
- Testimonials
Services
Press Room
Contact Us

Put your content into categories to make it easier to find with a site map.

2. Clean up your home page

The tendency for every website is to post every bit of new information to your home page. This is OK, as long as your remove the not-so-new information from the home page at the same time.

It's actually very helpful to keep your home page updated with "What's New" type of things. It's just when you forget to take them down when they're not new anymore is when you run into problems.

3. Keep pictures organized

Nothing will make a website look more jumbled than having random, huge images scattered randomly on your website. Make sure all your pictures follow these guidelines:

Resize them. Make sure they're big enough to view, but still fairly small. Allow users to click them to view larger version if necessary.
Use photo galleries. If you want to use large photos then keep them organized in a photo gallery where people can view them if they want to.
Add some extra padding in between your images and the text or the end of the screen. Having things too close together makes it look cluttered.
Wrap text around pictures. It looks good to fill up any empty space on your website with text. See the example below:

The best way to align your images with text wrapped around.

See the empty space to the right? The picture above is not as effective since the text does not wrap around the picture.

4. Use an archive section

A lot of times you may have older content on your website. You probably don't want to delete those pages, but they shouldn't play a prominent role on your website either. A good way to keep them while not putting them front and center is to create an archive section. This can apply to old articles, photos, news items, events, etc.

Once you have your archive section set up, just put it as a subcategory under News or something. It will be out of the way, but if users want to find it, they can. Plus it's good for search engines to keep that content on your site.

5. Ask people what they think

Since we know our own websites inside and out, we often don't have the correct point of view. Ask people who don't look at your website very much what they think. Is it easy to navigate? Is it intuitive? Or do they look at it blankly not really knowing what to do, click on, or read?

Hopefully these tips help you keep your website usable and not too cluttered. Remember that your users want to find things easily and quickly. Good luck!

Don't forget to let us know if you're interested in improving your website or just want some consulting help. Click here to contact us.