Thanks to Steve Jobs, Google (and others), simple is here to stay. It may not be easy to accomplish, but I believe it’s worth striving for — in our home lives and our work lives.

Keeping a website simple is a constant challenge. As our businesses grow and mature, it can be so tempting to add another page, another client testimonial, another case study, another accolade, another bullet point to the already too long list of services we provide. Of course, we’re told that the more content, the better — if nothing other than to attract the almighty search engines.

My advice? Don’t do it. Continue to keep your site simple. Your clients will thank you for it. Your authenticity will shine through. Yes, relevance and authenticity still count.

How do you keep your site simple? Here are 7 key tips:

1. Focus on your most essential product and service offerings. Your site visitor doesn’t need to know everything you’re capable of. When you later connect with that prospective client, you can fill in the blanks, as appropriate.
2. Reduce the page count. Most visitors need just an overview of who you are and what you provide to decide if they should contact you.
3. Limit the number of tabs and navigational choices. If we offer visitors too many choices, we paralyze them. I equate this to the cereal aisle in the grocery store — too many choices and, hey, do I really need cereal this visit?
4. Keep your most important content above the scroll. The majority of site visitors still don’t scroll (at least on desktop devices). Contact info should definitely appear high up on the page.
5. Choose a palette of 2 or 3 colors. If we use any more than that, we confuse the eye and dilute our brand identity.
6. Write content for your human audience first. Yes, keywords still matter, but ultimately, once you “get found,” you still need to be able to convince your visitor to buy from you. Keep things relevant and use your authentic voice.
7. Continue to simplify. Sure, we all need to add content as we grow and evolve, but remember to subtract content that may no longer be important or relevant to your business today.

Don’t we all prefer to do business with people who are authentic and uncomplicated? Your clean and simple website can help you project an image of polished professionalism. Less is definitely more.

by Rebecca Cochran