5 Steps to a Successful Website Redesign

5 Steps to a Successful Redesign

Redesigning your website? Don’t know where to start?Not to worry, we’ve got you covered. By the time you finish reading this 5 step guide, you’ll have a solid plan to get you on your way to a brand new site. Get ready to attract, engage, nurture and convert your visitors!

There are many good reasons for a site redesign.Whether sprucing up the look and feel of your site or improving functionality, most sites could use a refresh every now and then. Commerce is shifting more and more online each year. In fact, now 81% of consumers will research a company website before making a purchase (RetailingToday). Chances are they’re even looking up your competitors. Your website gives visitors a strong first impression of your company. You want to make sure your site provides the assurance that your company is healthy, forward-thinking and ready for new customers. It is integral to the ongoing success of your organization.

First Ask:

How can your new website support your overall marketing efforts? This is a commonly overlooked aspect of a redesign. Did you know your website can trigger success in brand awareness, social media marketing, email marketing, lead generation and sales? Ask yourself what are the goals for the redesign and how your business will benefit in the long run.

Outling Your Goals

These goals will determine how the project will progress. If you have multiple goals, put them in priority order. Tie each goal to a specific metric so you can measure success. If your goal is to generate more leads by increasing traffic to your site, you could say you want to increase traffic by 30% over the next four months. Once you’ve got your goals set, communicate them to all people involved in your redesign. You can even create a document to update and share as the project moves forward.

PRO TIP: Between outlining goals and diving into design, ask yourself a bigger question. Do you have the right Content Management System (CMS) powering your website?

A Content Management System (CMS) is a platform that allows non-technical users to manage content, trigger automated marketing functions and access analytical data on a single back-end interface. The best part about a good CMS system is that it helps users optimize the way their business interacts with customers in an increasingly online world; leveraging the most important digital channel their website - to do so.

User Experience

User Experience Design (UXD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility or pleasure provided in interacting with your website. In this case, the user is your site visitor who is also your prospective or current customer. Your new website should communicate products and services upfront while guiding visitors to complete one or two main objectives, also known as calls-to-action.

Be sure to review wireframes with your design team to see how calls-to-action will nurture and convert visitors and how your website will render on various devices (desktop, tablet, phone).

Forrester Research says that 75% of web visitors who can’t find the information they need will seek answers from more costly support channels such as phone, email, or chat. The other 25% of web visitors respond in the following way: 16% find other solutions and the remaining 9% end up going to your competition (yikes!).

PRO TIP: Consumers may behave differently on each device so design accordingly.

Someone visiting your site on a mobile device may look for different information than someone viewing from a desktop. More than 17% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices – a number that will only increase going forward (Statista).

Information Architecture

Information Architecture (IA) is the organizational structure and labeling of pages and folders on your website. The goal is to help users find information and complete tasks efficiently. To do this, start by thinking about the priorities of your site and what visitors will need to see first. Outline how the information fits together and relates to the overall purpose of the site.

It helps to identify your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). A UVP defines why your products or services are different from or better than the competition. You’ll need to know your UVP later on to develop your search engine optimization strategy (SEO).

Your homepage should give a high-level overview of your company and define your UVP. Your navigation and the pages linked to your homepage are then sub-categories and so on. If your company sells cars, your homepage would explain why they should buy a car from you over the competition. Then the pages linked to your homepage will describe the models of cars that you sell and so on.

Layout Versatility & Adaptability

Many studies find that companies redesign their website every 2-3 years. Yet there’s a difference between a full website overhaul and necessary tweaks to keep things functional, fresh and updated.

A full website overhaul is time-consuming and may include implementing an entirely new Content Management System. Make sure you do it right the first time around to extend the lifetime of your website. So, how can you make sure your website will stand the test of time? Build in an element of adaptability to your site. There are two different ways to think about site adaptability. The first type is what we call being responsive or mobile-optimized. The second way a site can be adaptable is by being built on a WYSIWYG editor.

A responsive site recognizes the screen size of the device being used and automatically adapts the layout accordingly. Most sites are built this way and it is a must-have for long-term strategy.

A WYSIWYG editor stands for what-you-see-is-what-you-get. This type of editor enables non-technical users to edit and add new content without having to code or outsource to a third-party. Being able to make quick updates to your site, as well as add new pages and forms, means that you can present relevant information and support your sales and marketing strategies.

Ensure the Success of Your New Site

Congratulations! If you’re at this step, you’ve recently launched your new website. You’ve worked so hard to refresh your online presence but you can’t just set it and forget it. Make sure your site continues to be successful by following the following steps:

Post Launch Strategy

1. Review analytics and set benchmarks to monitor performance.
2. Optimize for organic keyword performance.
3. Align website content with business goals.
4. Create an editorial calendar and publish new content.
5. Check site health regularly.

Remember those goals you set in Step 1? Whether you wanted to increase visitors or form submissions, you can track these analytics on your live site! You can use Google Analytics to track data points that can tell you all about the health of your site and the new visitors you attract to it. A CMS and marketing system like Bridgeline Unbound takes this one step further to track data and deploy automated marketing campaigns to nurture your leads all day, every day.