The Future Buzz

The vast majority of businesses and bloggers try to do far too much with their sites.  Ultimately this is a mistake.  Your opportunity is to go the opposite route and be a more refined, clear and useful option.

Ask yourself, what is the single most important idea I would like my web property to communicate or action I would like a visitor to take.  Now, focus your site to make sure every interested visitor sees your call to action, loud and clear.  It is that simple.

Direct each visitor’s attention only to what is absolutely vital and you will win every time against your competition that does too much and is unfocused.

For example…

You could go to Weather.com, where you’re greeted with a screen that looks like this:

Or you could go to UmbrellaToday.com where you simply get this:

You could go to MySpace to engage your friends on a social network that looks like a billboard here:

Or you could go instead to Facebook and use a service that clearly defines what it does:

You could use a search engine that tried to do everything here:

Or you could use one that focuses on being the best at one thing here:

You could get a new system from Acer’s website (they actually do make good products):

I’m a PC user, however there is no denying the beauty and simplicity of Apple’s consumer website:

You could use a service like MessageForums.net to build a message board:

Or you could use Ning.com and easily and quickly build a whole social network:

Should I look something up on Encyclopedia Britannica which offers me superfluous content I didn’t even query on the homepage:

Or perhaps Wikipedia, which presents me purely with the interface and language choice:

Look carefully at your own .com.

Are you a Weather.com or an UmbrellaToday.com?  Are you a Yahoo or a Google?  Are you a MySpace or a Facebook?  Do you really need all those tabs, buttons, links, banners, graphics, flashing animations and logos?  What is the most important thing you want readers to learn about you, what one action do you want visitors to take?

Adding complexity is standard and expected.  Simplicity is truly remarkable and will make you stand out.

What if instead of trying to do and say everything, you decided to simply be the best at one thing?

Related posts from The Future Buzz

25 Examples Of Clean, Effective And Beautiful Web Design

Simplicity Versus Complexity

How To Stand Out In A World Of Infinite Choice

Related posts from around the web

Please Don’t Bombard Your Customers With Information (Tim Jahn)

There’s No Shame In Looking Good (Signal To Noise)

45 Fresh, Clean And Impressive Designs (Smashing Magazine)