Declutter Your Artist Website
It’s everywhere—your inbox, download folder, computer files, phone, etc. One thing’s for sure when you run an art business—there’s no escaping digital debris.
Let’s talk about decluttering your artist website so you can increase engagement, enhance your user experience, and raise your SEO score.
Step 1: Declutter Your Top Navigation Menu
Your top navigation menu is one of the first engagement opportunities your site visitors will encounter. A menu stuffed to the brim with links will confuse and deter your site visitors from engaging with your artist website. The good news is that a little strategy can go a long way.
Consider This
What is your goal for this season? Which web page will help you reach your goal this season?
Which secondary pages will support your goals?
Keep
The link to the web page that will move the needle in your business should be the top navigation menu’s primary call to action link and be formatted as a super click-worthy button.
The supporting pages can become the other links on your top navigation. Keep the number of links on your top navigation menu to five or fewer. If you must have more than five links on your top navigation menu, consider nestling some of them under a drop-down menu (see cautionary note below).
Clear language. Don’t make your visitors work to figure out what your navigation titles mean. Clear over clever wins every time.
Declutter
Any other links not mentioned in the top navigation can be placed in the footer at the bottom of your website (more on this in a bit).
Avoid too many drop-down menus. They’re overwhelming and may keep potential patrons from taking action on your site, thus lowering engagement and conversion.
Cutesy, niche, or confusing navigation titles. Keep it simple.
Step 2: Declutter Your Copy
Consider This
Your website copy is meant to engage your website visitors, guiding them through your art offerings in a memorable (and strategic) way. There are plenty of people who say people don’t read. However, that’s not an excuse to skimp out on your website copy. People don’t read irrelevant or uninteresting copy, so it’s our jobs to make sure that our copy is easily digestible and highly relevant to our ideal audience.
Keep
Copy that’s engaging, informative, entertaining, and/or inspirational.
Text formatting that breaks up the copy. Thing headlines, bullet points, numbered lists, etc.
Click-worthy calls to action that inspire engagement.
Declutter
Large paragraphs that span the width of your website. Nobody loves reading on their screen and moving their head left to right as if they’re eating a long cob of corn. Keep your paragraphs on the narrow side.
Paragraphs longer than four lines. Again, break up your content with headings, bullets, and numbered lists.
Grammar and spelling mistakes. Consider using tools such as Grammarly and Hemingway App to make your copy sparkle.
Excessive “I” mentions. Yes, your website is about you and your story, but that doesn’t mean every other sentence needs to begin with “I” or “me”. Turn some of the copy on your website around and make it about your audience. Check out this About Page I created for my Liberated Artist Blueprint client, Sophie Taylor.
Step 3: Declutter Your Links
Consider This
Nothing ruins a website browsing session like a broken link or a dead end. Not only do they stop would-be site visitors on their tracks, hurting your conversion rates, but they can also impact your SEO reputation by sending Google signals that your website is malfunctioning, old, or abandoned. Getting a grip on those dead ends is crucial for your artist website to grow its organic reach.
Broken links happen when you have a typo on a URL slug, or a page you’ve linked to is disabled or deleted. A dead end can also happen when a visitor encounters a page that’s no longer relevant (think an old sales page for something you no longer offer, etc). This causes visitors to bounce out of the page or your website, which increases your bounce rate and tells Google that your content is poor or irrelevant.
Keep
Web pages that are active, relevant, and actionable. Keep your active pages scrollable with a clear goal, enticing copy, beautiful images, and clickable elements.
Optimize your 404 Error page by serving your most popular links and content. Want to see what I mean? Click here to see mine.
Declutter
Identifying Broken Links on your artist website
Visit Dead Link Checker and input your web address making sure you check the “whole website” option. Let the app work its magic and scan your entire website to generate a list of broken links.
Fixing Broken Links on your artist website
There are several options to fix broken links that Dead Link Checker identifies.
Check for typos. Many times it’s as easy as correcting a typing error.
Delete the page or link if it’s no longer needed. Not the best option if this link is roaming around the internet outside of your website (say, on Pinterest) because when people click on it, they’ll hit the 404 error, which isn’t ideal.
Create a redirect link. Redirect links are very handy because it prevents the 404 error and keeps people on your site. You can set up redirect links on your Squarespace website by checking out these instructions from Squarespace.
I hope these steps motivate you to keep building an online presence worthy of your artistic genius. If you liked what you read and you haven’t done so already, check out…
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