Web design is a component that makes or breaks the first impression of a brand. Moreover, the design is not something that’s completed once – it’s a continuous process of improvement.
Website Redesigning is the process of changing the website’s interface, incorporating new brand identity elements, and changing the functionality. Website Redesigns can be gradual (one feature at a time) or incremental (when you fully change the look and feel of the platform).
Key Reasons Why a Business should consider a Website Redesign
Changing the look and feel of your site is always about taking risks. When you are investing in improving the platform, you often feel like walking in the dark. Of course, you can address these concerns by using statistics and A/B testing – we’ll get to this later. However, as many redesigns can be scary, the advantages clearly outweigh the issues.
1. To Ensure Better Brand Communication
Design is the reflection of your brand’s values. Business priorities and selling points change all the time – and the website has to reflect these shifts. Ideally, you should consider principles of good design every several years – it’s likely that your company has undergone a dramatic transformation this time.
2. Increasing Page Visibility
Users should be able to see all the advantages of your brand at a single glance. This is what design is meant for – to present all your company has to offer as efficiently as possible. When most teams design the first version of the website, they have a vague idea of their selling points and main offers. As a result, they go for generic templates and then think about filling the page up with content.
At first, this approach works. When you are getting the company off the ground, you have other priorities – improving a product, internal operations, setting up communication. At some point, however, you need to come back to your website and reevaluate if your page showcases the best facets of your company clearly enough.
3. Accommodating Best Marketing Practices
As your business grows more sophisticated, you need a more advanced blog, retargeting, marketing, SEO management. Both front-end and back-end of your website have to be updated to keep up.
Moreover, a content management system needs to be changed. As you grow more proficient in marketing, a website redesign is inevitable.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning a Successful Website Redesign
When you are starting a web design, you need to prepare for everything. It’s important that the entire team understands whom they are catering to and what are the highest-priority improvements. Here’s a checklist of 7 easy steps that will help you avoid risks of redesign and get the most out of it.
Source: apseos.com
Identify your Target Audience
When you are planning to redesign, you need to understand who will benefit from the final version. All users look for different things in a website. Some visitors like rich functionality, others prefer simplicity. With visual components (colors, shapes, etc.), the differences are even more striking. You can’t target every potential user.
After you have an idea of whom are you talking to, summarize this data in a user portrait. Write a profile of an average user of your website – age, job, family, interests, priorities, issues, concerns.
Set Goals and Objectives
It’s almost impossible to define the success of something you can’t measure. Everybody has different aesthetic preferences, so your team’s opinion can’t possibly be the ultimate one. Numbers will provide a more reliable picture of the redesign efficiency.
This is where metrics come in – you can set up tangible analytics that will measure the success of your redesign team.
Create a Sitemap
Before you start a redesign, you need to know which pages will make it to Google index. If a page doesn’t need to show up in the search results, don’t put it in the site map. Examples of such pages are 404 redirects, “Thank you for the purchase”, or feedback pages.
Don’t Separate Design from Content
Using a content-driven strategy during a website redesign helps to avoid a mismatch between content and design. When writers, SEO specialists, and designers cooperate, the result is a comfortable website that’s adapted to the requirements of search engines and specifics of brand content.
Create a Content Strategy
After you’ve created content-driven page templates, it’s time to take it further and create a long-term plan. You need to have a long-term vision of what kind of content will be published on the website.
Determine your Budget
To make a correct financial estimate of the project, you need to have an idea of how a complete website will look like. That is why content strategy and site map creation come first.
To calculate the cost of the project, take into account design, development, and marketing expenses. If you are using additional tools like InVision, Ahrefs, and others, take their monthly and yearly costs into the account as well.
Beta Testing and Launch a Redesigned Website
Before you release a new site to everyone, collect a beta testing group. It could consist of early adopters – enthusiastic brand advocates who would feel honored to be the first ones to try out a new website. Also, you could engage your long-term clients in beta-testing to increase their loyalty.
When you get positive feedback from your beta-testing group, it’s time to prepare the alpha-release. Likely, between beta- and alpha-release, you need to make a couple of additional improvements in the website and run user tests.
Bottom Line
Before starting the redesign, teams should clearly understand their objectives. Plan and create a website redesign strategy with your team. You can also hire a website redesign company to make the whole process a lot smoother.
If your website doesn’t deliver the optimal performance or has a high bounce rate, you need to get to the bottom of the problem before you start changing. Also, use analytical tools and consult an experienced development and design team before embarking on the project. Finally, once you have started, keep a track of all metrics and consult your referent group to make an informed decision that is the key to redesign success.
Feel free to ask any query. And if you are looking for website redesign services, get in touch with us now!
