How to Declutter Your Author Website

Jan 19

Although I do like to refresh some intentions in January, I’m not a fan of new year resolutions. Nonetheless, this does feel like a great time of year to simplify, streamline, and declutter - both in my business and in my house.

If you suspect that your author website could be sleeker, more professional, and more effective, then it might be a good time for you to declutter.

Decluttering a website isn’t about stripping out your personality, or dumbing things down. It’s about clarifying your message, reducing distractions, and making it easy for the right reader to understand who you are, what you write, and what they should do next.

General website decluttering principles

First, here are some general principles for decluttering your author website, without losing what makes it yours.

1. Start with one clear purpose per page

Pages often become messy because they’re trying to do too many jobs at once. For example, have you fallen into the trap of trying to sell your book, explain your backstory, promote services, capture emails, and reassure visitors you’re legitimate… all on the same screen?

Ask yourself: What is the single most important thing this page should help a visitor do?

Then, make sure this next step is clear, without competing actions or distractions.

Additionally, I will often include the next-best-action, like signing up for your email list, in the footer of each page. This means, if someone reads the whole page, but isn’t quite ready for your ideal action, there’s a good chance they’ll choose to stay in touch.

2. Make text easier to skim

Attention spans these days are short, so you can help your reader by showing them:

Shorter paragraphs
Subheadings
Bullet points
Appropriate images
Relevant links

And split information into multiple sections, more pages, or additional downloads, instead of trying to show everything in one place. You might also get creative with one or more accordion blocks or other features that allow a visitor to dive deeper.

3. Always check mobile view!

I love Squarespace as website tool, but many novices don’t realize that you need to check and adjust mobile view whenever you make a significant change to a page. Otherwise, I’m sorry to say, you can publish a real mess without realizing it.

Also, a word count that looks reasonable on your desktop or laptop can seem way too long on mobile. Squarespace now has a handy feature where you can hide entire content blocks on mobile view. I often use this for decorative images and design flourishes, but you can definitely use it to pare down the mobile experience, too.

Where to look for clutter on your author website

So, with these general guidelines in mind, where does clutter most often lurk? And where is it doing most damage?

Start with your Home page. Trim unnecessary or outdated words, get rid of any headline that says Welcome to my website or similar.
Next, check your Bio. It always amazes me how quickly time passes, and how a bio can get out of date.
Do you have a News page? This is your next stop. Either split your events into headings with “future” and “past”, or be sure to list the year so that readers know what is coming and what’s old. The second method requires less upkeep!
Are your social media links/icons current and accurate? Get rid of any where you’re no longer active, or if your posts have strayed away from topics that support your author brand.
Related: Which social media links should you add to your author website?
Is your website menu clear and uncluttered? Don’t ask your visitor to get lost in a maze of options.
Hopefully, your website footer doesn’t have too much clutter. But while you’re making easy updates, be sure to update your copyright year.
Related: What to put in your author website footer
If your website suffers from broken links, you’re cluttering up your reader’s journey. Not only is this frustrating for website visitors, but Google is likely to penalize your site, too.
Does your blog show dates? When did you last post? This might be time to write a new article, or at least hide the dates on older pieces. If your content is “evergreen” then it’s fine not to show the date of it.
Related: How to remove blog dates in Squarespace
Finally, if your website is older and still has a sidebar layout, this is a classic location for clutter, distractions, vanity metrics, and broken links to lurk.

And you might then need to add…

After you’ve cleaned things up, you might realize that useful or current information is missing. Go ahead and add:

Recent news and announcements
Your latest book(s), including reader praise, awards, new formats or other material that wasn’t available when the book first came out
If you retire or remove any old pages, you should add redirects so that visitors don’t come to a broken page.
Related: How to Set Up Squarespace Redirects (and why you should)

Want me to declutter for you?

If you’ve been able to identify the parts of your Squarespace author website that need a clean-up, but you don’t want to do the work yourself (or you don’t know how!) then you might be a great match for my one day Author Website Glow Up service.

Author Website Glow Up

Popular resources for a crisp, clean, effective author website

Save 10% off your first subscription for a Squarespace website by using the code PAULINE10

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