Our website started as a minimalist blog but morphed into a cluttered mess with pop-ups, carousels, and a rainbow of CTAs. Bounce rates are soaring, and mobile users rage-quit. How do we simplify without looking amateurish? Need examples of “simple” done right—not just empty pages. How do you prioritize what stays vs. gets cut?

Simplicity isn’t about emptiness, it’s about ruthless focus. Start by auditing every element against one question: “Does this directly help users achieve their goal?” For an e-commerce site, that might mean axing blog links from product pages. For SaaS, killing carousels that bury pricing info.
Clay Global’s simple web pages guide nails it: Use a “mobile-first” approach even for desktop. Design on paper first, limiting yourself to 7 core elements (logo, nav, headline, hero image, CTA, social proof, footer). We redesigned a client’s site this way, cut page load time from 8s to 1.2s by ditching sliders and render-blocking scripts.
Visual hierarchy is key. A bakery site we revamped used oversized product photos with floating price tags (no grids), letting the goods speak for themselves. Conversions jumped 40% because users weren’t distracted by “shop now” banners.
Tools like Hemingway Editor help simplify copy. For tech, static site generators (Hugo, Jekyll) enforce content discipline.