The fact that it essentially costs nothing to add text to a website has encouraged many companies to take all of their print materials and "dump" them onto their websites.  This has caused a virtual text swamp in which websites are less effective than they should be.

Cutting through this mess involves two steps:

1. Setting goals for the website as a whole and for each page on the site, and
2. A serious editing job on each website page to fulfill those goals while delivering a good user experience.

The editing process can be difficult for the company because certain "excess" messaging has to be discarded or, if it is important, it can be moved to secondary pages or accessed with links.

But the benefits of doing so more than outweigh the challenges.  The end result of this process should yield a compelling message for the company, a website that "breathes," and, most important, a satisfying experience for the user.