WeSo, you’re looking to begin a redesign of your website. Here we are sharing the Ultimate Guide to website redesign. Perhaps you’ve just completed the process of revamping your brand, or perhaps the product you offer was recently updated.
Whatever the motivation, a redesign could be an enormous tool for the success of these. It could also be a lengthy and tiring project. That is the reason every redesign must begin with a clear idea or a problem to be solved.
The more precise you are in creating your vision at the start, the more effective the redesign process will be. It also makes the whole process smoother.
If it’s an agency you’re working for, re-designing could be for your website in-house. It can also be presenting a new design to the company’s key users.
This article offers strategies to guide you through the redesign of your website and ensure it’s an overwhelming success and not a failure.
A redesign of your website involves altering the contents, structure, and navigation on your site. This increases the site performance and attracts more site visitors.
Many businesses decide to overhaul their websites to attract more customers when their business expands.
Other companies consider a website revamp in the context of a bigger branding initiative.
It is a crucial step given the importance of your website in the branding and marketing of your company. A new study has revealed that 50% of users believe that design is vital to a company’s overall branding. Many people believe that the site you create is like the items that you sell.
How often should you update Your Website?
Based on a study the typical duration of a site’s life span can be anywhere from 1.5 or 2.5 years. Since design trends change, technological advancements happen it is the standard duration for which designs are “fresh” and at the same time competitive.
However, that is just a guideline and you’ll need to decide what will work best for your particular business.
The following factors will determine the frequency at which you should update your site:
What is your frequency of brand or goal shift? When you’re ready for a new website begin by asking yourself “Does this site still reflect what we’re about as a firm?”
What amount of budget do you allocate to development and design? Consider “Can an online design be delayed or am I able to find any reason to implement the budget for our website today?”
How long will your website remain up and running? Take a step into your users to see whether you are able to navigate your site with ease. Find what you’re looking for without having any issues or lengthy page loading. About 50 % of websites have between four and six page views for each visit. All this means that your website’s speed and navigation have a lot to do with it.
Consider “Is the site producing a decent amount of visitors? Are users on the site for an acceptable amount of time or do they leave?”
Industry-wide changes. For instance, the moment Google declared that they were changing to a mobile-first indexing system which required websites to have mobile-friendly designs.
Your website is where your visitors and customers go to get answers, read content, ask questions or buy products or services. Therefore, it is best to be prepared before committing to the redesign of your website.
You could be spending more time preparing the plan for the redesign of your website as opposed to the actual redesign. If you’re wondering what needs to be included in your redesign strategy, begin with the steps listed below.
Steps to Redesign a Website:
- Check your current performance metrics;
- Determine your website redesign goals;
- Create your brand’s identity and message;
- You must define your buyer’s persona(s);
- Optimize pages for search engines;
- Study the competitors;
- Make a list of your top-performing pages;
- Select the best software;
Let’s look at eight crucial ideas for redesigning your website. You should consider these when you are planning and finishing your redesign:
Compare your Current Performance Indicators
Before you start designing your new website take note of your performance metrics currently in place. These will help you get an understanding of how your website is and what you can enhance.
Go through Your Current Design
Review your website’s performance each month in the below areas. The significance and importance of each metric will vary based on the goals you have for your redesign. It’s a good idea to look at each one prior to beginning your design.
- Number of visits and visitors that are unique;
- Bounce rate;
- Keywords that are top-performing in terms of ranking, traffic, and lead generation;
- Inbound linking domains: New leads, total form submissions, and total sales made;
- Pages indexed in total;
- The total number of pages that are accessed by visitors;
In the event that you do not have access to this data, I suggest tools such as Google Analytics and HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics to help you get more accurate data.
Tracking and revealing your website’s performance
Additionally, take note of the tools you used to determine the various benchmarks previously. In the ideal scenario, you’ll employ the same tools for making your post-redesign measurements. Otherwise, it’s like comparing apples with oranges.
Determine your website redesign goals.
What is the “why” that drives your website redesign? If you’re considering a redesign there must always be a reason for the decision.
If you’re responding by saying “well it’s been quite a while since we’ve made an update” or “my rival just came out with the same thing,” those reasons aren’t adequate by themselves.
Be aware that it’s not just about how your site appears however, it’s about how it operates.
Make sure you understand the reason you’re undertaking a revamp, and link your goals to tangible outcomes. Also, share your goals with your designer, team, or even your agency.
Take a look at the following data-driven goals for your site’s objectives:
- In order to increase the number of visitors and visits (both are essential as a visitor may visit more than
one time); - To lower bounce rate;
- To improve the amount of time spent on the website;
- To improve domain authority;
- To increase the number of new leads and forms submitted;
- To increase the sales;
- To improve the current SEO rankings for key keywords;
A lot of these goals are connected on each other. For instance, if you want to boost sales, you may have to increase the number of visitors to your website while reducing its bounce rate.
Also, take a look at the metrics that you picked from the previous step. Do you have any other metrics that you can improve using your new site? Perhaps you are using your old site’s metrics to encourage new visitors, too.
Create your brand’s identity and message.
When you are creating your website’s design and content, you must be certain of your brand’s desire as well as a distinctive value offering. This will help ensure that your brand is consistent across the entire website.
Anyone who visits your site for the first time must immediately know what you are offering to help them. Also and the reasons they should remain on your site in order to avoid a trip to rivals.
Consider whether you want to alter your branding or messages, or if they remains the same. If you’re planning to alter it, what do you need to be changed? Make these changes a priority when you design your new website.
As you develop your content, use clear, concise language. Beware of jargon used in the industry that can make your messages seem unprofessional to your viewers. This make your voice sound more like a corporate robot than a real human.
As you design your brand identity, think about the aesthetic aspects of your website. Decide what aspects should be updated and what can remain the same.
Did you create a fresh logo or style guideline and color scheme? Be sure to apply these to your new website to ensure it is in line with other aspects of your branding.
Determine your customer persona(s)
Your website isn’t just about you. Actually it’s not really about you. When visitors arrive on your website, they’re probably asking themselves “What’s there for me? What could it do for me?”
Your visitors should be able to communicate with you in their own language. This can be achieved by crafting your website’s design along with your buyer’s personas.
Use our buyer persona creator tools to help you build thorough buyer personas.
Does your audience’s demographic change in the course of your website revamp? Does your brand and content match this new audience? Ask yourself these questions while you plan your redesign.
Ensure your pages are optimized for Search Engines.
Finding your website’s online presence is important to improve your website’s performance. If nobody can find your website and browse it, how can you boost the number of leads, conversions, or sales?
Record your top search-valued pages
Utilize your marketing analytics to identify which pages are receiving the most traffic and have the highest number of inbound links, and convert the most leads.
Finally, focus on the most important issues in your industry. If you intend to change one of these relevant pages, make sure you have the correct redirects for 301.
Create a 301 redirect strategy
In the context of 301 redirects, they are crucial to keep the volume of traffic and the link juice that is associated with a given page.
Create a spreadsheet in which you can keep track of and plot all 301 redirects (old URLs as opposed to. newly created URLs). You can then hand over this spreadsheet to someone with technical expertise for implementation.
Do your keyword research
Each time you publish a page on your new website, select one keyword/topic that each page will concentrate on.
Once you’ve identified the keyword(s) you want to use, follow the best practices for on-page SEO to optimize your website and pages.
Additionally, you should consider adding new content and pages on your site that focus on those specific keywords and subjects that aren’t being addressed on your current website.
Study the competitors.
Although we do not recommend worrying about your competition, it could be helpful to know what you’re comparing to.
The first step is to run your site through some Website Auditing tool to produce an assessment of how your site is performing.
It’s also possible to make use of this tool to assess your competitor’s sites, so that you are cognizant of their strength and weaknesses.
Take a look at the competitors’ websites and make note of the things you like and the things you do not. This assists you in determining the areas you could improve on your site.
When you have completed your analysis of your competitors create an action list with a focus on areas that need improvement as well as ways to distinguish yourself from your competition.
Make a list of your most effective content
Although a redesign is an effective option to increase the efficiency of your site there are many ways that it could harm your site.
Your current website may contain several high-performance assets you’ve created and are now at risk of the loss of these. This can be a big problem.
The efficiency of the site due to redesigning can seriously affect your marketing efforts and their results.
For instance, these assets might comprise:
- Content that is most shared or viewed;
- Top performing or ranking keywords and related pages;
- The number of links that are inbound to individual web pages;
If, for instance, you decide to remove the page on your website which has been accumulating a large number of inbound links it could result in losing lots of SEO credits. So, it becomes difficult to find in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Remember that a lot of web designers do not take this aspect because they are not SEO or marketing experts. Do not hesitate to remind them of this.
Select the appropriate software.
The last (but perhaps the most crucial) stage of the redesigning process is choosing the best software you can choose and host your site.
This software is commonly referred to as Content Management System (CMS). We utilize it to design, develop and then publish your site for the world to view.
CMS software can be beneficial because of a number of reasons. No matter if you’re a new digital marketer or an experienced web developer, using a CM5 will help you build a stunning and functional website.
Selecting the appropriate CMS depends on your specific business and the CMSs you are already familiar with, and the features you require for your new website.
There are many CMSs to pick from. Amongst them, CMS Hub is the only one that combines CMS with CRM. You can also look over some of the top CMS platforms to find out more about the options available.
Great! You’re now ready to design, plan create, build, optimize launch and evaluate your new site.
Follow these steps in the Ultimate Guide to Website Redesign to redesign your website to attract more customers, impresses more users, and turn more customers.