Website Optimization: 6 Things You Must Remove Immediately

As a UI/UX designer I've reviewed quite a few websites and have learnt what works and what doesn't based on theory & practices that get applied by thousands of leading brands. If your website isn't getting you more leads or paying clients, it's much more likely that you don't need to add anything to your site at all but you do need to get rid of some things. Things that are confusing your visitors, pulling them away from where you want them to go and in some cases just scaring them off.

In this article I'm going to share the 8 things you need to remove from your website right now, why these things are ruining your ability to get clients and what works way better so you can keep more of your site traffic right where you want them so you can turn them into paying customers.

1. Crazy or Inconsistent Color Schemes

The first thing you need to remove from your website is any kind of crazy color schemes. I see it all the time, especially when business owners DIY their own site, and they don't really have that designers eye but at the same time they get afraid that their site becomes boring. What ends up happening is they end up choosing too many colors or the colors they do choose just don't match. As a result, it ends up looking way more DIY (homemade) than it should.

You're Negatively Impacting Your Credibility

It's not just about what we can do, right? It's about having the instinct to pull back and edit. Because even if your clients can feel something is off, they'll still feel it. And that gut feeling can really make people second guess the credibility of your business and this is the kind of thing I see happen all too often, especially with newer businesses.

Your Website Should Guide Visitors Where You Want Them To Pay Attention

Your website should have your visitors focus on the call-to-action (CTA), your persuasive words and testimonials, but you don't want your website to overwhelm its visitors with colors. Make sure to pick a few colors that work well with your brand, and then use them to accentuate - not to dominate.

2. Get Rid Of Your Complicated Menu

If you ever landed on a website and you didn't really know where to go or what to do, that's a problem. When your visitors feel that way, guess what'll happen? They're not going to spend the time figuring it out, they'll simply leave and go to one of your competitors. Your website is not a place for visitors to wander around aimlessly, it's about leading them straight to why they're there in the first place, which is to see if they want to work with you. One of the easiest ways to achieve that, is to get rid of your overcomplicated menu.

Based on our experience making hundreds of sites for service based businesses, I find the magic number for menu items is 5. This isn't just a random number or personal preference either, it's all about cutting through the clutter to give them a really clear path.

What you'll want to do instead is keep your navigation really nice and simple and only include the pages that people would want to see to become a customer. Everything else can find a home somewhere else on your site, usually down in the footer area where people will want to find them or in some of the other pages that will drive organic traffic through your SEO efforts.

A good example of a easy to navigate menu is the screenshot down below.

But what about the actual content of your website? If your website mostly uses self-indulging wording where it feels like all you talk about is yourself and how great you are, you need to change this quickly.

3. Turn Your Visitor Into The Hero

If your website is all about you, your results, your achievements or uses a bunch of corporate filler words (which also happens when you let ChatGPT write most of your content), you're off track.

You make think that what being professional looks like, but what ends us happening is that your audience doesn't connect with it. So instead of making it all about how awesome you are, focus on your audience and their pain points. Make it all about them and turn your visitor into the hero of the story. Talk about their challenges and how you can guide them towards getting it solved, but keep it simple, as if you're explaining it to an 8th grader.

This doesn't mean you can't cater your copywriting to savvy business owners and leaders, but the language you use should be simple enough for anyone to understand it. No need for big words. Some of the most successful companies in the world know not to sound like big corporations on their websites. They keep their language super relatable because it works and it draws people in.

By using easily understandable words on your website, it helps your audience see that you are the expert they need without making their heads spin and overwhelming them with a bunch of technical jargon. The next one is going to be a little controversial for many of you, but hear me out first.

4. Remove Your Social Media From Your Website

Social media is all the way at the top of your sales funnel, where people will probably first find you or learn about your business. Then they get interested in you, decide they want to learn more, and as they move deeper in your funnel they are likely going to visit your website. That's where you have the home court advantage. This is where you can control the narrative and set the scene as you gently nudge them towards making a purchase.

Most starting business owners don't have the budget to work with a top rated web design agency, like our go-to partner Voodoochilli, a top rated Hereford Web Design studio, so I understand that there are some compromises you'll end up making, but you can easily sit down for a few hours and map out your sales funnels. Thank me later!

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Think About Your Sales Funnel

So why then would you want to have your social media profiles linked in your navbar (menu) right at the top of your website? Would you want to distract them and send them back to your social media or have your instagram feed plastered all over your homepage? You shouldn't drive people backwards in your sales funnel, because once they are on your site you want to keep them there.

You want your visitors to engage with your content, learn about your services, and move towards working with you or making a purchase.

5. Remove Stock Photos That Destroy Your Authenticity

This is something that can suck out so much of the authenticity of your business. All these overly posed and exaggerated stock images on your site might fill the void, but it also makes it feel super staged and disconnected from the actual experience of working with your business.

If the same photo gets used by 4 different businesses and your visitors get this feeling that the photos ain't real, I can promise you they won't convert into paying customers. What ends up happening is that they'll subconsciously start wondering what else on this website isn't real. Are they making fake promises? Are the reviews fake? And that's a road you just don't want to get down.

You Don't Need a Professional Photographer

I understand that not everyone has the budget to bring in a photographer to do a professional photoshoot of the business. The good news is, you don't really have to have one. You can still use stock photos or even better, create your own AI generated ones using something like midjourney.

The trick here is to either pick or create images that feel natural or really capture the feeling that your customers have after working with you. I actually recommend going for more satisfied looking expressions over ecstatic, so generally speaking you'll want to aim for the more higher quality images that don't really scream stock photo.

Bonus tip: real locations typically feel more authentic than those with just the plain solid backgrounds. They add a layer of realism to the story you're telling.

Especially on your about page, you'll want to have photos of people on your team versus a bunch of obvious stock photos. People need to see that there are actual humans behind the business. People do business with real people.

If visitors come and realize you're using stock photos for your team, they won't trust you as you feel like you're hiding.

Now that we're talking about the about page and team anyways, there's another important part.

6. Remove Your Team Bios

If you have a team, you should showcase them on your website but remove the team bios that go overboard. Nobody cares about their favorite pizza toppings, their personal hobbies or the stuff they post on their social media. Your clients won't care, at all. Besides, the social media links are a detour from the path that you'll want to avoid.

Instead of laying out a grid of bios, why not keep it really simple with a nice group shot on your about us page. It shows that there are real smiling people behind your work, without leading your clients on a wild goose chase.

Buffer’s About Us page focuses on the team behind the product. Instead of seeing a bunch of bios from the leadership team or broader team, you get greeted with a bunch of group photos with smiling people. This is what authenticity looks like!

Okay so now that we've covered everything that you should remove from your website, you're ready to get your website back on track and start working on your SEO efforts next to make your website visible to potential customers.

Need guidance on SEO and optimizing your website for even greater success? We're here to help.