Redesigning your existing website includes a lot more than simply changing the colours, fonts, menus and buttons. If you are considering redesigning your website, you need to determine the website’s overall objectives and look at redesigning the user experience. Even if you simply want a fresh look to your outdated web design to help boost conversion, having an objective/goal in mind will help you take the necessary actions required to achieve your goal and make the process smoother.
Having a strategic approach to website redesign is the first step to success. Before we look at the complete website redesigning strategy, let’s briefly check out what exactly is involved in a website redesign and the reasons why brands/businesses decide to redesign their site.
A. What is Website Redesign?
A website redesign may involve overhauling either the frontend or the backend or both. The frontend is what is visible to the audience, whereas the backend is what drives the various functionalities of the website (via codes).
A typical website redesign process includes changing the layouts, colour scheme, logo (if required), improving navigation, updating content and design elements, choosing the best content management system, coding language and CTA placement. (There are many other things as well!).
It is critical to thoroughly consider all factors (big and small) before moving forward as a website redesign is a big undertaking. Having clarity on the site goals will ensure that there are no surprises later on.
B. Why Should You Redesign Your Website?
Your website plays a vital role in acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones. A website redesign should improve both of these. It can also have an impact on your marketing campaigns as well as ROI. It is estimated that 75% of users judge a website’s credibility based on the overall aesthetics, design and functionality. Below are a few reasons why you should consider redesigning your website.
1. Rebranding
As a marketing strategy, rebranding is employed to re-establish a unique brand voice, to revive lost brand identity or to include new products and services. In the case of mergers, rebranding becomes necessary. If you are planning to rebrand your business, you would also need to redesign the website in order to align it with the new brand image.
2. Website is Built on Outdated Technology
Businesses need to keep pace with the rapid change in technology if they want to retain existing customers and improve their brand reach. You should consider redesigning your website if the technology that is used to build your existing site has become outdated. This will not only improve user experience, but will also enhance your site’s security.
A website built with new technology will offer additional features such as improved SEO, social media integration, content management and API connections to other systems, allowing access to use many other third-party tools, which will improve the overall functionality of your website.
3. Outdated Website Design
Apart from outdated technology, outdated website design is another reason for revamping a website. According to the latest web design statistics, 94% of users create their first impression of a business based on web design alone. Thus, to increase trust, dwell time, multiple visits and to increase revenue, you need to upgrade your website design and make it more professional and engaging.
4. Poor Website Navigation
If your current website doesn’t have well-structured, hierarchical navigation, then you should consider rectifying it through a website redesign. Poor website navigation makes it difficult for users to find the information they are seeking once they land on your site. This leads to a higher bounce rate, negatively impacting your sales and conversions. User experience is everything these days and if you users have a great experience they will keep coming back.
5. Current Website is Not Responsive
It is estimated that 48% of users believe that if a website is not responsive (mobile-friendly), it is a sign that a particular business simply doesn’t care about its target audience. Also, with Google’s mobile-first indexing policy, having a responsive website can help you rank better in the search result. So, if your current website is not responsive, then you are losing out on more than just potential traffic.
6. Slow Website
All users want to access information quickly and easily. If your web pages take too long to load, it can cause frustration and the potential lead may get bored and end up on a competitor’s website. The reasons for a sluggish website speed are many; unoptimised images, unclean codes and excessive HTTP requests. Through a redesign, you can optimise your site effectively to boost website speed and improve performance.
7. Not Optimised For Search Engines
This is one of the top reasons why many businesses consider redesigning their website. Search engine optimization is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness and drive organic traffic. It also helps improve your site’s ranking on SERPs. If your existing website is not optimised for search engines – with the right keywords, metadata, alt tags, H tags – search engine robots wouldn’t be able to index your web pages efficiently, which would hurt your rankings and ultimately your revenue.
8. Low Traffic and Poor Conversion Rate
As mentioned above, website design has a huge impact on your site’s traffic and conversion rates. If prospects are not staying on your website once they land, then one of the reasons might be poor website experience. A fresh web design can help you to improve user experience, converting prospects into potential leads and then into sales.
C. Website Redesign Strategy: 8 Steps
1. Analyse Your Current Website
A website redesign process begins by analysing the current website to determine the issues that need to be fixed. Is there a problem with the usability of the website that is affecting the traffic, or do you need to optimise the website for better conversion? This will help you to set clear goals and expectations for the new website. You also need to analyse your site’s current performance metrics to check which metrics can be improved upon through website redesign.
2. Analyse Your Competition
By analysing your competitors, you can gather relevant insights, discover opportunities and figure out where to improve. The data collected can also help you to avoid mistakes that can hurt your site’s performance. The analysis can include factors such as target market, keywords, and other metrics. You can use tools such as SEMrush and SpyFu for competitor analysis.
The goal of competitor analysis is to understand what your competitors are doing right, which can then be incorporated into your website redesign project.
3. Determine the Branding, Messaging and Value Proposition
To ensure consistency across your website, it is important to determine your branding, messaging and unique value proposition before the web redesign process. Do you need a new logo for the brand or a colour palette? Does the brand’s messaging need to be changed? This will help you to decide what aspects of your website needs to be redesigned visually, and you’ll be able to create content accordingly.
4. Set Achievable Goals With SMART Strategy
Redesigning a website may seem like an endless task, especially if your site is large. You need to set achievable goals with a SMART strategy:
- Specific: Set specific goals for the website, don’t be vague. For instance: “the goal of the website is lead generation.”
- Measurable: The goals you set need to be measurable. For example, don’t just say you want to generate leads through the website, set a measurable target of 10 leads per month.
- Actionable: To achieve the set goals, you need to strategize an actionable plan. For example, you can hire an SEO expert to optimise your website for users and search engines. Or make use of social media marketing or PPC services to generate leads.
- Realistic: Your goals need to be realistic to be achievable.
- Time-based: Set a deadline to ensure goals are met.
5. Pay Attention to the Original Content
Content is the most important reason why people visit a website. A website redesign can often lead to content review and update. If some pages/blogs are ranking well for a specific set of keywords, then you need to avoid making any changes to them as these pages can help rank your site once the website is live. A review and research will help you to discover new content that you can then incorporate into the new website.
6. Protect SEO Pages That Are Ranking Well
Getting your web pages to rank well organically in the search result takes hard work, planning and patience. A website redesign can affect your SEO so it is important to protect the web pages that have good search rankings. You can conduct a website audit to know which pages are ranking well. Some of the ways to preserve SEO rankings during website redesign includes retaining the website URL structure wherever possible and implementing proper 301 redirects. If these tasks seem too technical, you can hire an SEO agency to handle them for you.
7. Create a Visual Sitemap
A sitemap is a critically important element of the website redesign process. It is a visual outline of your site’s structure, navigation, and other functionalities (payment getaways) and needs to be created early on in the planning phase.
8. Select The Right Software
After considering the above factors, the last but the most important step is selecting the right software i.e. the content management system. From the different CMS platforms available, WordPress is the most popular CMS to design and develop a website. You can build a fully functional website with WordPress as it comes with a range of themes and WordPress plugins.
Once the website is launched, it is also easier to manage, update and maintain a WordPress website. Plus, it provides SEO integration, social media integration, content management and robust security.
Learn more about the WordPress services we offer.
#Partner With the Right Web Design Company
The process of redesigning a website can be long and overwhelming. But, when done correctly, it can help you to achieve your desired goals and boost conversion. The right web design company will help you throughout the different website redesign steps – from research and analysis to content update, SEO and choosing the right software.
Get in touch to find out how we can help you with your website redesign plan. For more information on our web design and development process, click here.
