Website Redesign

As a web development company, a large portion of the work we do is the redesigning and redevelopment of a business' existing website. There may be a number of reasons that you've arrived at to think about a website redesign, but generally they can be narrowed down to these key areas:

1.) Metrics are down

If your single biggest generator of sales/service leads is your website and you notice your figures consistently dropping for no particular reason, it may be time for a redesign. It could be a drop in email enquiries, sales through the website, enquiries in store, an increased bounce rate or something as simple as the phone not ringing as much as what it used to - whatever metric you use to gauge your business health. Since your website is generally the first port of call for any new customer, making a good first impression is critical and powerful tools like Google Analytics help to pinpoint areas of your website to pay particular attention to during the redesign.

2.) Your users tell you it's time

Whilst your metrics will give you an idea that things need to change nothing is more valuable than actually talking to your customers about improvements that could be made. Surveys work well but face-to-face conversation yields the best results. It could be something as simple as providing a feedback form on your website as a pseudo suggestion box. It will show your customers that you're genuinely interested in their feedback to enhance their online experience as well it shedding light on other topics like your brand perception and what your competitors offer. Offering a small incentive also helps in getting people in to see where improvements could be made and word of mouth of the incentive could potentially lead to an increase in sales/enquiries in the short term.

3.) You've outgrown your original functionality specifications

Your first website might have had the basics and has done the job until now. But you've been established for a while and you're embarking on a redesign and one of the biggest factors to think about is it's functionality. Does your new site need the ability to create custom forms? An ecommerce facility? Does it need to have a sign in area for secure pages? Email marketing perhaps? Is there a process that you do right now that your website could potentially automate or streamline for you? Compile a wish-list with the critical functionality first along with a 'nice to have' list for non-essential functionality to get a broad picture of what your site requires.

4.) It's about as pleasant to look at as Quasimodo

Aesthetically speaking, we're more likely to use a service or buy a product from a website that we find visually appealing. If your website is sporting gaudy graphics from 2001 or has more flashing lights on it than a Vegas Casino during a power surge then a redesign is definitely a priority. An altered site structure, quality logo teamed up a more appropriate colour scheme, stylised call to action buttons and elegant typography all greatly improve the look and feel of your site and thus with the possibility of converting that visitor into a customer. A redesign is also great time to think about overhauling the imagery on your site and how much you would benefit from choosing relevant good quality stock photography or having your products/services professionally photographed.

5.) It been a long time since it had a refresh

If it's getting to the point where you can't remember when you last updated your website that in itself is a reason to embark on a redesign. While most websites go through incremental changes over their life, wholesale changes should be made every couple of years [adjust based on opinion]. A redesign not only shows that you're willing to invest back into the website for the benefit of your business/customers/users but also that you're keeping your finger on the web pulse and moving proactively within your industry. Your current customers generally appreciate a revamp as well the added benefit of potentially obtaining new customers who might not have visited your site previously because of how it looked or functioned.

6.) Your competitors are updating their sites and you don't want to be left behind

A website redesign might be triggered based on what competitors in your industry are doing. If you're in a small market and your major competitor redesigns their site, they might attract additional traffic purely out of curiosity initially. If that initial curiosity turns out to be repeat trade because that site does something that yours doesn't, they are sales that you've missed out on with no guarantee or reason for the user/customer to come back to your website. If your website isn't proactive be reactive to what other businesses are doing.

7.) Your Website Optimisation is lacking

You could have the best looking website in your industry but if it's not optimised for Google and the ever-increasing smartphone/tablet demographic visitors just aren't going to find you. A redesign in combination with an SEO campaign sets up your website to perform better on relevant keyword searches so that people find you quickly and easily. Optimisation also applies to file formats ie. Flash animations that don't display or behave nicely on some smartphones/tablets. If mobile-based browsing figures into your online strategy, Flash-based elements need to be removed in favour of alternatives like Javascript animations.

Conclusion:

So there you go - a brief overview of topics that a web development company would take into account when tasked with a redesign. Armed with your own individual reasons and hindsight from your previous website experience/s, you'll generally find a redesign process is a little simpler second - or whatever iteration you're up to - time around. Whilst the above indicators are strong reasons to kick-off the redesign process, we're interested to hear what your particular reasons might be so feel free to let us know below.