Your website doesn't need more. It probably needs less.

There is a strange thing that happens when businesses redesign their websites.

Everyone starts adding things.

Another section. Another button. Another animation. Three more sentences explaining something the previous paragraph already explained.

Eventually the new website contains everything the business wanted to say, but finding the thing a customer actually wanted becomes harder.

That's not necessarily better web design.

Start with the person using it

Someone arriving on a business website normally has a reason.

They might want to understand what you do, see previous work, check whether you provide a particular service, find your contact details or decide whether they trust you enough to make an enquiry.

A website should make those things easy.

This sounds obvious until you look at how many homepages make visitors work through vague headlines, animations, pop-ups and several screens of copy before clearly explaining what the company does.

Speed is part of design

Performance isn't something that should be dealt with after the website looks good.

It affects the experience itself.

Google's Core Web Vitals focus on loading performance, responsiveness and visual stability. In practical terms, visitors shouldn't have to wait unnecessarily for the important content to appear, interactions should respond quickly, and the page shouldn't jump around while it loads.

A beautiful website that feels frustratingly slow is still a frustrating website.

Often, the solution isn't complicated. Optimise images. Don't load enormous videos unnecessarily. Use fonts sensibly. Avoid shipping JavaScript the page doesn't need. Don't install an animation library just to fade in a heading.

Small decisions add up.

Mobile isn't the desktop site squeezed smaller

This is another common problem.

A desktop design gets finished and mobile becomes a resizing exercise.

But somebody using a website one-handed on a phone has different constraints from somebody sitting in front of a 27-inch monitor.

An impressive desktop interaction can become annoying on a small touchscreen.

Sometimes the correct mobile design is to remove something entirely. That's not compromising the design. It's designing for the device somebody is actually using.

Animation needs a job

We like animation.

We don't like animation simply because animation is available.

A transition can help somebody understand that the page changed. Motion can establish hierarchy. A subtle reveal can make a page feel polished.

But if every heading flies in, every image moves with the cursor and scrolling feels like fighting the website, the design has started getting in the user's way.

The best interactions often aren't the ones people talk about. They just make the website feel right.

What should a good business website actually do?

It should explain the business. It should work properly. It should load quickly. It should work beautifully on a phone. It should make important information easy to find.

And when somebody is ready to contact you, it shouldn't make that difficult either.

Everything after that is a design decision.