Free resource

Declutter your website

This resource is designed for purpose driven organisations and charities to help you effectively declutter your website, so it reflects your mission and speaks clearly to your audience.

Using this resource

This resource is designed to guide you step-by-step through the website decluttering process, helping you create a focused and impactful online space.

Each section will walk you through essential questions and actions, starting with reconnecting with your website’s purpose. Along the way, you’ll use our interactive checklist to assess each part of your site with a fresh perspective.

The checklist will prompt you to evaluate whether each page, feature, and piece of content

  • supports your goals
  • speaks to your audience
  • and adds real value

By the end, you’ll have a clear roadmap to a streamlined website that’s easy to navigate and aligned with your mission.

Before you start… clear some time in your calendar, find a focussed space, get a fresh glass of water and take a few grounding breaths 🍃
Step 1

Reconnect with your purpose

Take a step back and consider the big picture. Just as you’d decide what you want each room in your house to feel like, you need to define the core purpose of your website. Ask yourself:

  • Who is the website for?
  • What’s the primary goal?
  • What’s the vision?

Understanding these key elements will help you decide what content to keep, adjust, or remove, making your website a space that truly serves its purpose.

Let’s take a deeper dive.

Who is the website for?

Like knowing who’s coming over to visit, think about the real people you want to welcome and engage.

List the main audiences for your website
Identify the primary groups who will be visiting, such as potential service users, donors, partners, or volunteers. A clear list will help keep their needs and interests in focus as you assess your content.
Brainstorm common questions or concerns each audience might have
Consider the typical questions and concerns each group may bring to the website, so you can ensure these are addressed in your content, guiding visitors to the answers they’re seeking.
Describe the ideal experience for each audience
Imagine what would make the website helpful and engaging for each group. Whether it’s an easy way to take action, clear paths to learn more, or an inspiring showcase of impact. Aim to visualise the experience that best serves each audience.
Identify the main needs and motivations
Think about what each group hopes to find or achieve on your site, whether that’s learning more about your mission, finding ways to get involved, or understanding the impact of your work. You may find it helpful to create personas for your audience groups.

What’s the primary goal?

Think of your website’s purpose as the foundation for every decision you make, similar to arranging a room to serve its intended function. Just like a living room is designed for relaxation or a kitchen for cooking, your website needs a primary goal to guide its structure and content.

Ask yourself: What do you want people to accomplish when they visit? This could be

  • Raising awareness about your mission
  • Increasing engagement with your services
  • Or inspiring visitors to take action

Defining this goal will give you a clear direction, helping you make choices that align every part of your site with your mission.

Define the single most important action
This action could be anything from signing up for a newsletter, making a donation, filling out a contact form, or engaging with resources. This main action should be easy for visitors to find and understand, acting as a central focus for their experience. By defining this key action, you can then guide visitors toward what matters most.
Identify secondary actions that support your main goal
Alongside the primary action, think about any secondary actions that would also support your website’s goal. These could be steps that build trust or engagement, like reading more about your services, sharing your content, or learning about your impact.
Define measurable outcomes that show success
Set specific, measurable outcomes that will help you know if your website is achieving its goals. Just as you might use metrics like “can I find what I'm looking for?” to assess a well-organised room, think about how you’ll gauge success on your website. These outcomes could be increased sign-ups, higher donation amounts, improved user engagement, or longer time spent on certain pages.

What’s the future vision?

Imagine how you want your “home” to evolve over time. Picture where you want your website to be in six months or a year to guide your decluttering process.

Visualise the ideal future state
Spend a few minutes envisioning what your website should look and feel like in six months or a year. Imagine what you’d love the website to be doing for you, and the results you want to get.
Describe the feeling you want future visitors to have
Should they feel inspired, informed, empowered, or reassured? Imagine the ideal experience for them—whether that’s feeling welcomed by a warm and inviting tone, excited by dynamic visuals and stories, or confident in your expertise and mission.
Tune into the broader vision
Reflect on your organisation’s long-term vision and the direction it’s heading. Where do you see it going in the coming years—what are its evolving goals and aspirations? Think about the unique role your website can play in supporting this growth.
Step 2

Assess your content

Now, let’s take a look at what’s on your website. This is your chance to really see what's there, online for all to see.

Note: You're not necessarily making any edits at this point... though you can if you want! This is more to get a sense what you're dealing with before getting the bin bags out. It's a helpful step to understand the scale of the work ahead.

Use this checklist to review each page and section of your site with fresh eyes:

Assess relevance to your audience
Does the content speak to the main questions or concerns from step one that your audience is facing? Does the content meet their needs? Are you guiding visitors to the answers they’re seeking?
Check for goal alignment
Does this content or feature support your main goals? Each piece should contribute to what you’re trying to achieve. Does every piece of content serve a clear purpose?
Consider the broader vision
Is every content or feature going to help you achieve the future vision for your website, or is it holding you back? Does it reflect an older version of your organisation, or is it pushing you forward?
Step 3

Reduce and reorganise

Now’s the part you’ve been waiting for—time to roll up your sleeves and dive into some digital decluttering. We’ve outlined some practical steps you can take in most website editors, along with a few structural changes that might require a bit more planning.

Let’s start with some quick wins to give your site an instant breath of fresh air.

Quick wins:

Remove outdated content
Replace or refresh any out-of-date information. Common things to look out for are things like, dates, statistics, links (these are super important to check), team members who have left, contact details etc.
Cut unnecessary content
If a page doesn’t add value, doesn't directly support your goals or support your vision, consider removing it. Each page, post, or section should provide value. If it doesn’t, it may be time to let it go. If similar information is repeated on multiple pages, remove, or combine pages or sections.

Important: If you remove a page, always set up a redirect so your audience doesn't land on broken links by accident.
Simplify complex or jargon-filled content
Is the information presented in a straightforward way? Avoid jargon, acronyms and overly complex language. Keep text easy to read with clear headings, short paragraphs, and visual breaks. And of course, make sure your GNDs and RF40s are the core praxies and SMLDs. (Jokes).

Go deeper

Depending on how much control you have over your website's structure and visuals, here are some more in-depth decluttering steps you can take that address the structure and layout as well as the content:

Optimise page layouts
Rearrange the layout of key pages to create a natural, intuitive flow. Place the most important information and calls to action where visitors naturally look first, and reduce any distracting elements that take away from the main message.
Check visual consistency
Make sure you are using the same fonts, colours, and image styles across your site. Replace any outdated or low-quality visuals. Replace any logos, taglines, or brand elements that don’t match your current brand identity.
Add visual breaks
Use white space, dividers, or section backgrounds to give content room to breathe. Don't be afraid of white space! It helps with readability and draws attention to key areas without overwhelming visitors.
Simplify your website navigation
Take a deeper look at your navigation menu. If you have dropdowns of doom (dropdowns within dropdowns...) consider simplifying them. Aim for a straightforward structure where users can reach any page within a few clicks.

Enjoy the space

We really hope that through this process you have been able to create more space and alignment on your website. We'd love to hear how you've got on! Send us an email – we read all our feedback and are always looking to improve our resources 🙏

hello@designimpact.studio

Next steps

If you've ever completed a big de-clutter of your home, you'll know that it's not something that's ever truly "done". You have to stay on top of the amount of stuff you have and be disciplined about putting it where it belongs.

As you move forward with your website:

  • Review content regularly – set a reminder every 3–6 months to check key pages are still accurate and relevant.
  • Add with intention – before publishing something new, ask: does this support our goals and serve our audience?
  • Keep an eye on analytics – spot underperforming pages and either improve or remove them.
  • Assign responsibility – make sure someone “owns” keeping the site tidy so it doesn’t drift back into clutter.

If you’d like a sounding board, this is where we can come in.

How we can help

  • We offer free 15-minute sprint calls where we give practical feedback on your website — from design and content to performance and GDPR.
  • If you’d like to go deeper, we run a Website Diagnostic Clinic to help teams prioritise content, restructure pages, and build confidence in their next steps.

If you’d like to explore what that could look like for your organisation, you can drop us an email or book a call here.

If you’d rather keep going solo with the guide, that’s brilliant too — we hope these steps have helped you feel clearer, lighter, and more in control of your website.

Let's work together

Drop us a line of you'd like an extra pair of eyes to guide you through the de-cluttering process.

Lizzie Kevan CurtisRebecca Burgess
Chat with us
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