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One of the biggest challenges in website design isn't figuring out what to include. It's deciding what doesn't need to be there.

Every department has something important to communicate. Every product deserves attention. Every initiative needs visibility. And before long, the website becomes a collection of competing priorities, each trying to claim a little more space and attention.

There's a lot of conversation right now about AI visibility.

How do we get ChatGPT to mention us? How do we get Gemini to recommend us? What technical changes do we need to make so AI can find our website?

Those are reasonable questions. But I think we're skipping one that's even more important.

Most websites are very good at talking. They have pages about checking accounts, auto loans, mortgages, credit cards and membership. They publish articles, promote products and put calls to action in all the right places.

They're also very good at measuring. They know how many people visited a page. They know which pages get the most traffic. They can tell you how many people clicked a button or used a calculator.

Twenty years ago, if a credit union wanted to serve Spanish-speaking members online, the solution was pretty straightforward.

Build a Spanish version of the website.

We did it ourselves.

Then technology changed.

Organizations naturally organize information around themselves. We have a lending department. A marketing department. Operations. Member services. Compliance. Products. Programs.

So it's tempting to organize the website the same way.

Your website is being scanned.

Probably right now.

Automated systems constantly scan the internet looking for vulnerable software. They're not interested in your latest promotion or your branch hours. They're looking for specific technologies, specific versions, specific files and specific vulnerabilities they know how to exploit.

When people visit your website, they aren't there to admire it.

They're there to accomplish something.

Maybe they're researching a product. Maybe they're looking for your phone number. Maybe they're comparing checking accounts, trying to reset a password, or searching for hours.

There's an old saying:

"What gets measured gets managed."

There's a lot of truth in that.

One of the easiest ways to improve a website isn't adding another feature.

It's giving every page a clear purpose.

Too often, pages try to do everything at once.

One of the biggest shifts in how we think about websites has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with perspective. Too often, organizations think about websites in terms of pages.

"We need an auto loan page."

"We need an About Us page."