How to Make a Large, Content-Heavy Website Easier to Use

When a website works, but people cannot find what they need

A website might be technically sound and visually well designed, but that does not necessarily make it easy to use.

Over time, content accumulates. Different teams add information. Pages are duplicated, replaced or forgotten. Organisational structures change, but the website does not always change with them.

The result can be thousands of pages of useful information that people struggle to find, navigate and understand.

This is a common challenge for public sector bodies and other organisations managing large, information-rich websites.

And the answer is not necessarily a new website.

Why is our website content so difficult to find?

Often, the problem is not the technology or visual design. It is the content itself and how that content is organised.

There may be too much of it. Similar information may exist in several places. Navigation may reflect internal departments rather than user needs. Important information may be buried several levels deep.

Before redesigning a website, it is worth understanding whether content strategy, content design and information architecture could solve the underlying problem.

What is website content strategy?

Content strategy is about making deliberate decisions about what information a website should provide, who it is for, how it should be structured and how it will be managed over time.

For a large organisation, that can involve questions such as:

• What content do our audiences actually need?
• Can people find that information easily?
• Do we have several pages answering essentially the same question?
• Is important information buried within the organisational structure of the website?
• Which content is outdated, redundant or no longer useful?
• Where should the authoritative version of particular information live?
• Who is responsible for keeping content accurate?
• How can we prevent the same problems building up again?

These are content and information architecture questions rather than visual design questions.

And they can often be addressed without redesigning or rebuilding the website.

Start by understanding what you have

Before deciding what needs to change, you need to understand what you already have.

A website content audit can identify outdated, duplicated, poorly performing or unnecessary content. Analytics and website search data can add evidence about what people are looking for and where they may be struggling.

But the objective is not a giant spreadsheet of URLs. A good content audit should lead to decisions about what to keep, improve, combine or remove.

Content consolidation: less can be more

Different departments may publish information about the same subject. New pages get created rather than existing ones being updated. Old guidance remains online alongside newer information.

Content consolidation, sometimes called content rationalisation, identifies this duplication and determines where information can be combined.

Where appropriate, this can create a single source of truth: one authoritative piece of content that is easier for users to find and for the organisation to maintain.

The aim is not simply fewer pages. It is clearer information.

Information architecture: organising content around users

Large websites often reflect the organisation that created them.

Users may know nothing about that structure. They arrive with a task: understand a regulation, find guidance, make an application or access a service.

Information architecture (IA) is about organising and labelling website content so that those users can find what they need.

That can involve reviewing navigation, page hierarchies, terminology, categorisation and relationships between different areas of content, informed by user research, analytics and search behaviour.

Findability is bigger than website navigation

People do not necessarily start at your homepage. They might arrive through Google, an internal website search, a link from another organisation or increasingly through an AI-assisted search or discovery tool.

That changes the way organisations need to think about content. Individual pages need clear purposes. Related information needs meaningful relationships. Titles, headings, metadata and terminology need to be considered carefully. And important information should not be unnecessarily repeated across multiple locations.

Good information architecture and good content strategy work together. The objective is simple: wherever someone starts their journey, they should be able to find clear, accurate and authoritative information.

Content design: making complex information easier to understand

Public sector organisations often need to communicate complicated, technical or statutory information.

Content design starts with what the user needs to know or do, then structures the information around that need.

Plain English, meaningful headings, clear page structures and accessible content can make complicated subjects considerably easier to understand without sacrificing accuracy.

Content governance: keeping your website under control

A one-off content clean-up will not solve the problem permanently.

Without clear ownership and governance, unnecessary content gradually builds up again.

Who owns each section? When should it be reviewed? Who decides whether a new page is needed? What happens when information becomes outdated?

A practical content governance framework helps maintain quality after the initial content consolidation work is complete.

Do you actually need a new website?

Sometimes. But not always.

If your main problems are duplicated content, confusing navigation, poor findability or information organised around internal structures, rebuilding the website may simply move those problems into a new system.

A content strategy and information architecture review can establish what is actually wrong before you decide what needs to change.

Sometimes that leads to a new website. Sometimes it identifies significant improvements that can be made to the website you already have.

How Path can help

Path helps public sector bodies and other complex organisations make large, information-rich websites clearer, simpler and easier to use.

Our content strategy, content design and information architecture services can include website content audits, content rationalisation and consolidation, user needs and task analysis, information architecture and navigation, Plain English, accessibility, stakeholder workshops, content governance and implementation planning.

This can be commissioned as a standalone consultancy project. You do not need to be planning a website redesign or redevelopment.

If people are struggling to find or understand information on your website, we can help you understand why and establish a practical path to improving it.

Contact us for a free initial discussion about your website and what you are trying to improve. Email hello@path.ie or call 01 679 9212.