How to Rationalise Websites: A Complete Guide

Why Website Rationalisation Matters

Most organisations end up with too many websites over time. Whether through mergers, acquisitions, or internal projects, it is common to see sprawling, overlapping, and hard-to-manage online portfolios. This makes websites expensive to maintain, difficult to secure, and confusing for users.

Website rationalisation is the process of simplifying and consolidating websites so they better align with business goals. It involves streamlining content, design, and technology by removing duplicate, outdated, or inefficient elements. Done well, rationalisation reduces costs, improves user experience, strengthens security, and ensures websites directly support business objectives.

This article explains how to rationalise websites step by step, why it matters, and what practical strategies can help organisations achieve long-term success.

Key Benefits of Website Rationalisation

Rationalising websites is not just a cost-cutting exercise. It creates real value for organisations and their users.

1. Cost Savings

Removing duplicate content and unnecessary applications reduces licensing, maintenance, and hosting costs. By cutting bloat, businesses can save money and free resources for more strategic projects.

2. Improved Efficiency

Simplified websites are easier to manage. Administrators can maintain fewer sites with less effort, and users find it easier to navigate content and complete tasks.

3. Enhanced Security

Outdated or unused applications are a security risk. Rationalisation removes these weak points, reducing the attack surface and improving overall resilience.

4. Better User Experience

A streamlined website structure creates a more intuitive and consistent experience. This helps users find what they need faster, boosting satisfaction and conversions.

5. Strategic Alignment

By rationalising web properties, organisations ensure that each site serves a clear business purpose and aligns with wider digital transformation goals.

6. Simplified Infrastructure

Consolidating websites means fewer tools, platforms, and systems to support. This makes IT infrastructure easier to manage and scale.

7. Increased Agility

A rationalised website portfolio enables organisations to respond more quickly to changing market demands, launch new features faster, and adapt without being slowed down by legacy systems.

The Website Rationalisation Process

Rationalising websites requires a structured approach. The following six steps provide a roadmap for success.

Step 1: Set Clear Goals

Before starting, define what you want to achieve. Common goals include:

• Reducing costs by cutting licences and hosting fees.

• Improving website speed and SEO performance.

• Boosting conversions through clearer calls-to-action.

• Enhancing user experience with simpler navigation.

• Streamlining management for IT and content teams.

Step 2: Create a Website Inventory

List all web properties and content. For each asset, capture:

• Name, URL, owner, and age.

• Performance metrics (traffic, bounce rates, conversions).

• Usage frequency.

• Total cost of ownership (licensing, hosting, support).

• Dependencies (connections to other systems).

Step 3: Evaluate and Categorise Assets

With the inventory in place, assess each website and page for performance and business value. A useful framework is the TIME model:

• Tolerate – Keep as is, if it performs well and is essential.

• Invest/Migrate – Upgrade or modernise if it is valuable but outdated.

• Consolidate – Merge if it overlaps with other properties.

• Eliminate/Retire – Remove if outdated, unused, or low-value.

Step 4: Create a Content Strategy

Once you know what to keep, focus on improving content quality and structure:

• Audit existing material and decide what to update, remove, or repurpose.

• Simplify navigation with fewer, clearer menu items.

• Ensure each page has a strong call-to-action (CTA).

• Tailor content for your target audience to maximise relevance.

Step 5: Execute the Plan

Put the rationalisation plan into action:

• Use 301 redirects when retiring pages to preserve SEO value.

• Implement a content delivery network (CDN) to improve site performance.

• Ensure all sites are mobile-friendly for modern audiences.

Step 6: Monitor and Learn

Rationalisation is ongoing. After launch, track:

• Key metrics like traffic, conversions, and page speed.

• User feedback via surveys or feedback tools.

• Future opportunities for consolidation to prevent website sprawl returning.

Ten Practical Tips for Website Rationalisation

Beyond the formal process, here are ten practical tips to keep rationalisation effective and sustainable:

1. Align with resource allocation – Make rationalisation decisions at the same level as budget and project planning.

2. Update innovation strategy – Use rationalisation to rethink your digital and market priorities.

3. Be decisive – Cut unnecessary sites and projects rather than putting them “on hold.”

4. Eliminate zombie projects – Retire pet projects, dormant initiatives, or sites without clear value.

5. Refresh ROI projections – Adjust business cases for new realities, such as market shifts.

6. Use tiered ranking – Prioritise sites into A, B, or C categories to simplify decisions.

7. Move past sunk costs – Don’t keep weak sites just because you’ve already invested in them.

8. Preserve bottlenecked functions – Avoid cutting resources in areas that slow down the whole system.

9. Protect growth projects – Keep space for innovation and future opportunities.

10. Communicate often – Be transparent with teams about decisions, priorities, and the reasoning behind them.

Common Challenges in Rationalising Websites

While rationalisation brings many benefits, organisations often face barriers:

• Resistance to change – Teams may be attached to their departmental websites.

• Data and content overload – Cleaning up large volumes of content can be time-consuming.

• Integration issues – Migrating websites into a single platform requires careful planning.

• SEO risks – If redirects are not handled properly, search rankings can drop.

Overcoming these challenges requires clear communication, strong project management, and a long-term commitment to simplification.

Future of Website Rationalisation in the Digital Age

As organisations continue to adopt digital transformation strategies, website rationalisation will remain a critical task. With users demanding speed, clarity, and mobile-first design, cluttered or outdated sites will quickly lose relevance.

Advances in analytics, automation, and AI can make rationalisation easier by identifying low-performing content, monitoring user behaviour, and streamlining the consolidation process.

The future of rationalisation is not just about cost savings—it is about creating a digital presence that is strategic, efficient, and user-centred.

Key Recommendations

Website rationalisation is essential for any organisation seeking efficiency, agility, and stronger alignment with business goals. It is not a one-off project, but an ongoing discipline that keeps digital estates clear, secure, and effective.

Key recommendations:

• Start with clear goals and a complete inventory.

• Use structured frameworks like TIME to guide decisions.

• Simplify navigation and content for a better user experience.

• Execute with care to preserve SEO and maintain trust.

• Monitor performance and refresh strategies regularly.

By rationalising websites, organisations can save costs, improve security, strengthen customer experiences, and stay ahead in a fast-moving digital landscape.

For more professional insights on digital strategy, website management, and transformation, subscribe to other GJC articles via www.Georgejamesconsulting.com.