Maximalist vs. Minimalist Website Design

Do you prefer minimalist or maximalist websites?

Spoiler: There’s no right or wrong answer. But there can be right or wrong execution.

What I mean by that is: if your site visitor cannot quickly find the information they seek, they’ll leave. A lost opportunity for you.

Libraries: The Brick ‘n’ Mortar representation of websites

For those of you who remember what the inside of a local library building looks like, let’s examine the parallel from decades ago:

You walk into your library and head to the card catalog. You look up the topic you seek, finding a list of 1-5 books accompanied by their coded location in the public stacks. You head to “C24.K.5” quickly finding the section, aisle, rack, and row of your selection. You find your book and head to checkout.

Today, we do this in a nanosecond because Google or ChatGPT, or another search engine, locates your reference and provides the link. The key is in the efficiency of finding what you’re after.

The library without coded books or missing books

What if your site has this information, but a search engine can’t find it?

Worse, what if, in your quest for streamlining, this information doesn’t exist on your site?

A library with no visitors

Since the first of the year, Google searches that result in clicks to websites are down more than 60%. In the last 30 days, referral traffic from ChatGPT is down more than 52%. Searchers are getting their answers without visiting websites.

Translation: Your site has to work harder for you than ever before.

Your site needs to show up in search results on more platforms since folks seek answers on numerous AI sites.

Your site needs to answer their questions. And, your site needs to rank well for EEAT: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust. That’s the new acronym for garnering good online results.

How to build EEAT

Here are 5 ways to rise to the top in these four areas:

1. Webpages need to answer questions. What do you do? What’s your expertise?
2. Create great experiences. A bad experience? Slow loading pages. Remove energy-eating gorgeous images that take too long to load. Speed the answer.
3. Build listicles – blog articles that list solutions, how-to steps.
4. Build frequently asked questions (FAQs) pages: What is XYZ business? Where are they located? What do they do?
5. Feature your trustworthiness with client reviews and testimonials.

Search engines love this information and this page structure to understand and serve up sites with this data in their results.

Remember: That local library houses TONS of information. But you can’t see it with its minimalist visual design and structure. However, the world is stored within its walls.