What is Website Redesign?
A website redesign is a process of restructuring your existing website. It includes giving it a new layout, changing content, modifying navigation, and optimizing it for better conversions.
A website is the face of your digital identity.
All your efforts in Digital marketing pivot to this single entity. If you are planning a redesign the existing website, you need to consider an upgrade of both frontend (the way it looks) and the backend (the database where it processes information).
Before you dive further and decide to redesign your website, you must be aware of what goes into the process of making a fantastic website redesign. After all, you will not want to do this wrong.
Clarity on what you want is better before reaching out to a developer and telling him you want a redesign. You do not need to be a technical whiz to identify the problems or decide what you want out of the website redesign journey you wish to start.
When do you need to Redesign your company website?
You want to get your website redesign, but the reason for the redesign is what we are interested in. We have seen businesses coming for a redesign to achieve the following:
Repositioning Of Their Brand Or Rebranding
When you want to change your brand's perception of your audience or stand out amongst numerous competitors in the market. The business undertakes a Rebranding exercise. A business goes for Rebranding in case of:
Rebranding does not mean changing the name and logo of the company but positioning it so that it resonates with the audience.
Launching A New Product Or A Service
Launching a new line of products or services calls for a redesign of your website so that you can accommodate new features and functionalities. The product could be a tangible product (e.g., any physical product like a food item, electronic items, etc.) or a digital product (e.g., a new version release of a software). In both cases, you need to plan to redesign and accommodate these products on your website.
Adding New Functionalities Or Improving Conversions
You may need to consider a revamp of your current website if you are adding new functionalities to the system or if you want to see how you can increase conversions. A/B Tests are a great way of analyzing your customer response, and your website platform should allow you to run those when needed.
Your Website Is Not Responsive In Nature
With the rise of Tablets, Phablets, and Mobile Phones, your consumer is not visiting your website only from the computer. They want the information on the go, and you need to prepare your website to offer that experience to them in the best way possible. If your website is not designed for mobile phones, you are missing on many visitors who will be interested in your products and services.
Ranking Higher In Search Engines
As life goes digital more and more consumers rely on search engines to find what they want. Their viewership limits traditional media like newspaper ads or magazine ads, but when we speak of a Website, it can attract an audience from all across the globe. Your website needs to follow the search engines' guidelines and need to be optimized to rank better.
How to Plan Redesigning of your Company Website?
There are four different aspects of your website that need to improve when you plan for a redesign. Analyze your current website and find where you stand on these in your website designing process.
Usability Of Your Website
Usability translates to the user journey on your website. Rather than expecting the user to find a product they want, you should plan their journey to reach that section of your website. Website loading speed, navigation, security, and responsive design cater to defining the website's usability.
Content Is King
Yes! Content has been the king and will always be. Understand what your users want, write about it, and make it easy for them to reach that. You want the visitors to read information and create a lead that your sales team can advance in your sales funnel. To achieve this, all you need to do is make information relevant to them, comfortable to read on any device and attract them to ask for more.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO, determines how your user will find your website. It would be best to evaluate your website with tools like semrush, seopowersuite etc to see how it ranks. Higher rankings in SEO means more traffic to your website; with improved conversion rate optimization, you get more leads or sales. Look at both the Technical and Content aspects of SEO for your website in the plan.
Increase Conversions
Consider you have a considerable amount of relevant traffic but no conversions, no leads, no sales. Why will that happen, is there something broken, are they not understand what you offer, are they unable to trust you or anything else. You need to continuously improve your website for conversions based on the user journey to convert more.
Avoid the Pitfalls 🙂
Like I said earlier website redesign is not just changing the way it looks without the reason. There are distractions and pitfalls you need to avoid so that you can redesign your website successfully.
You Do Not Have A Scope & Requirement Defined
Most businesses believe that by just giving a new look to their existing website, the conversions will increase. Just because your website looks shiny and new, it will not attract visitors. It will not make them fill out those forms and go to the next step in your sales funnel. It is not that you can do anything and everything. In a redesign project like any other project, you need to set up a scope and requirement defined at the time of start so that you are not sidelined by distractions and lose focus of your ultimate purpose.
Consistency In Brand Message
A brand is not defined by you but by the people who use it. For this, you need to ensure that your brand message is consistent at all the mediums, be it your website, newsletters, offline presence, letterheads or a billboard. It is your message that matters most in developing your Brand image.
Unreasonable Expectations
Lack of plan leads to heartaches in your project. You will expect the project to finish on unrealistic deadlines; a typical well-planned overhaul can vary between a month to 3 months, depending upon its complexity and the items involved. Define versions and releases so that you can see the progress happening at each time.
It Should Look Good So What If It Does Not Work
This is the biggest problem of a website redesign project. You emphasize the looks more than the functionality. A typical mindset says if it looks good, it will attract, but that is not the case when talking about visitors or search engines. What matters is not just looks but how you showcase the information for the visitors. How fast they can reach the information they need to make a decision and move on.
Assuming Website Redesign Is A One Time Process
Many assume that if they have done a website redesign and the website is live, their work is done. Sadly, this is not the case. In reality, this is the point where the real work comes into the picture. You need to access that the website is indexable by the search engine, it is loading fast, it does not have broken links, the link juice passes from older pages to the newer ones, and many more. Conversion Rate Optimization starts the moment your new website goes live.
Compromising On Site Performance
When revamping your website, consider technical aspects like site uptime, site speed, site navigation, mobile performance, and device ways to monitor them regularly. Focus on technical factors that will affect the SEO rankings or even the PPC positioning of your website. Since optimizing your website is an ongoing process, these metrics will create data that you can analyze to make data-driven decisions in the future.
Choosing the Right Website Design Company / Agency / Services.
If you are looking to hire a company to redesign your website, look for the following before getting started with the website redesign project:
Request for a Free Audit
Allow us to do a Free Audit of your current website and layout a strategy for redesigning your company website.