Hot tip: While your health and wellness business may have a bounty of amazing services & resources to share, you need a simple website design to convert visitors into clients.

Don’t worry, simple website design doesn’t mean basic, or boring. It means we’re making it as simple as possible for site visitors to become favorite clients in your holistic business.

I’ve been a web designer for enough years that at this point I can load any website in the world and within a minute have a list of recommended updates. I see sites with missing location data, missing SEO elements, missing mobile optimization, and missing calls to action. Lots and lots of things are routinely MISSING.

Often, however, the #1 issue I see with health and wellness websites is that they are simply TOO COMPLICATED. 

“I’d like you to design me a really complicated website”, said no client ever! And yet somehow the majority of websites I see out there are just that – complicated.

Why Simple Website Design is so important

Usually, when we go to a website we actually are looking for something quite specific. A quick way to book a service or get in touch with a business, the answer to a question, customer reviews or the pricing of a product or service.

Notice how I wrote a “quick way”.  Because our interests are so specific, we really are looking for a quick answer. We don’t want to have to scroll through endless pages of site content just to find XYZ. We want results – now. Preferably a minute ago…

83% of people leave websites that fail to provide straightforward information. So if people are having to hunt for key information you are losing them.

3 Simple Ways to Know if Your Website is Complex instead of Simple

Have a friend who doesn’t know much about your work play “pretend client” on your website. Give them 3 key questions to answer about what you do within 60 seconds, such as:

1. How do you book a session with me?
2. How much does it cost to work with me?
3. What services do I offer?

How many site visitors are you losing? If you take a look at your site analytics and see a high bounce rate (over 50-60%), or the average time spent on your site is under a minute, people are likely landing on your site and leaving again within a minute, generally due to a belief that they’re not going to find whatever it is they were looking for here.

Now you might find the “average time spent” stat confusing. Shouldn’t a higher time on site mean that visitors are having to spend more time looking for answers? Nope!  Remember, we are creatures of convenience. Our brains want answers quickly and easily, and the moment it becomes hard to get that simple answer, we go on to the next option.  If site visitors are spending over a minute on your website, that is generally a GREAT sign that your content is high value & interesting to visitors.

How to Ensure You Have a Simple Website Design

Now here’s the catch… for good SEO, Google WANTS us to have lots of site content filled with keyword-rich content and plenty of words on those pages (1000 words on your service pages!).  So how can we keep it simple while also having a ton of great content?

Keep your menu navigation as simple as possible

Yes, I know you have 12 different services…  And yes, if they are services you want to show up in search for, you do need individual pages for them that are well-optimized for SEO. However… let’s avoid having them all in a giant drop-down, shall we?

In fact, 76% of people abandon sites if they have to click through multiple layers of submenus.

Instead, you might have a work with me page, or divide services into themes such as “Birth Support” and “Postpartum Support.”

Look for bonus pages such as blogs & resources & testimonials and consider alternate ways of displaying them.

For example, you can feature related blog posts on key service pages & include a button to more posts below.  Your resources page might be linked from the footer & your blog posts. Testimonials can be woven into your home page & service pages and use sliders to keep them feeling sleek instead of being visual clutter.

Limit the clicks site users need to get key information

Take a close look at your site structure and make sure key information is never more than 1-2 clicks away from the home page. Ideally, one click! 

You can test this by making a list of the top questions people usually have about your services and trying it out yourself. Better yet, have a friend do a test run for you.

If people don’t know where to go on your website to find what they are looking for, they will leave and move on to your competitor’s holistic services website.

Clear Calls to Action

Make sure you have clear calls to action visible in multiple places on each page so they can easily book your health and wellness services. Remember if someone is accessing your site on mobile (as often over 50% of users do!), they might have to scroll and scroll to get to that one button.

Also, make sure your CTA buttons are a consistent color that “pops” in contrast to the rest of your content.

Keep your website design style simple

Clear always has to be prioritized over clever if you want your site to convert. Now, it can of course still be absolutely beautiful in design and impress the heck out of site visitors. But remember just because we CAN do something with a site design, doesn’t mean we SHOULD.

You have likely experienced landing a site with way too much stuff. Photos, graphics, long paragraphs of center-aligned text, hard to read fancy script fonts, complicated layouts…

What about sites that move all over the place? Sliding text left and right and up and down! Things that seem to bounce in off the side of the page? They’re trying to get your attention but use them too much and they just make you feel incredibly annoyed.

You have under 10 seconds to grab their attention and keep them on your site. Do it with simplicity instead of gimmicks.

In fact, site visitors have been shown to form an opinion about a website in just 0.05 seconds. That’s ridiculously fast. Those flash judgments could be hurting your health & wellness business.

Simple websites with fewer elements, smaller images, and less complex code generally load faster. Faster load times improve the user experience and lead to more great clients finding & hiring you!

Plus, simple website designs typically do better with mobile devices, which your clients are most likely to be using the first time they find you.

Define Your Customer Journey

It is helpful to consider the exact journey you want a site visitor to take through your website. What do you want them to know first? Do first? 

Ensure that they can follow each step with ease and without having to THINK.  

It’s easy to overcomplicate things because there is so much we want them to KNOW about what we do!  

The best simple website designs don’t overcomplicate things. Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client and provide a clear pathway for them to book your services.

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Ultimately, your simple website design provides a smooth, pleasant user experience for potential clients. What better way to market your health and wellness business? They feel cared for & informed from the first moment they encounter you online!