Your website is your virtual business card and it often provides the first impression of your business to future customers — making it one of the most important aspects of your company.
But if your website still has cobwebs from the 2000s, it’s time to put together a website redesign process.
A website redesign process can help bring your site to life and engage potential customers. Not only that, but it can even help to convert them if you do everything right.
But how do you put together a website redesign strategy and what does a typical website redesign process look like?
On this page, we’ll outline the website redesign process to help you give your website the glow up it deserves.
If you’d like to speak to a professional about a website redesign, feel free to give us a ring at 0802-583-7481! Otherwise, keep reading to learn more!
Does your website need a redesign?
Before we jump into the website redesign process, it’s important to determine if your website needs a redesign in the first place. After all, why fix something that’s not broken?
Your website probably doesn’t need a redesign if:
- You’ve redesigned it within the last two to three years
- It’s effectively driving leads
- It sees a lot of traffic
- You saw an increase in traffic, leads, and conversions after your previous redesign
- You’re happy with how your website performs
- The functionality works seamlessly
If you’re the owner of an already-successful website that fits the above criteria, you probably don’t need to worry about a website redesign.
Now, let’s talk about how to know when it’s time to put a website redesign process in place!
If your website fits these criteria, it’s time to create a website redesign process
On the other hand, if your website fits the criteria below, it’s time to consider creating a website redesign process.
- You haven’t redesigned your website in the last five years
- Your logo and branding changed
- The functionality is out of date or doesn’t work
- You’re dissatisfied with traffic, leads, and sales
- Your website isn’t mobile responsive
Let’s talk a little more about each.
You might need a website redesign process if: It’s been 5+ years since the last redesign
A lot can change in five years, including what users expect from a website. What passed as a great website five years ago likely won’t stand up to the competition present day.
That said, if it’s been more than five years since you put together a website redesign strategy, it’s time to freshen up your site.
Chances are your brand style and product offerings have shifted slightly, so it’s crucial that you keep your website up to date, too.
You might need a website redesign process if: Your logo and branding changed
Your logo and branding are two things that make your business recognizable. Loyal customers look for these elements and they play a huge role in what makes your company unique.
If you shifted your logo and branding, changed the color scheme of your brand, or even shifted the style completely, it’s time to put together a website redesign strategy.
Your logo and branding should always match your website since you can easily confuse visitors if they don’t match.
You might need a website redesign process if: The functionality is out of date
If your buttons don’t work, your navigation bar isn’t accurate, or your links are outdated, it’s time to put together a website redesign strategy.
Users will stay on your site only if it functions well. For example, if your navigation bar doesn’t take users to relevant pages, or the links don’t work, it’s a great time to put together a website redesign process.
Not only can you update the functionality, but you’ll brush up your navigation bar design and rethink your most important pages.
You might need a website redesign process if: You’re dissatisfied with the performance
Although you can’t blame low site traffic completely on a website’s design, it definitely affects the metric.
Google wants to serve users with the best possible sites that fit their queries. To determine the best sites, not only does Google look at relevant content, but they also want to determine what website will provide the best user experience.
You might need a website redesign process if: Your site isn’t mobile responsive
Mobile responsiveness means that users can access your website from their phone and have the same experience that they would on a desktop. If your site isn’t mobile responsive, users likely won’t be able to click buttons, and photos will appear skewed or too large.
From 2013 to 2018, mobile traffic increased by 222%, and it shows no signs of stopping. With so many users accessing your website from a smartphone, it’s more important than ever that your website is mobile responsive.
If you don’t have a mobile responsive site, it’s time to put together a website redesign process.
Not only is it important to users that your site is mobile responsive, but in July 2019, Google stated that they started using mobile-first indexing. This change means that Google uses the mobile version of a website for both indexing and ranking — making it even more important for you to have a mobile responsive website.
Typical website redesign process in five steps
After reading this far, you probably have a good understanding of whether you need to create a website redesign process for your website.
If you’ve decided that you do, we’ve got you covered with our five website redesign process steps.
1. Take a deep dive into your current website
The first step of any website redesign process is to audit your current site. It’s impossible to know just what your website needs if you don’t know what it currently has.
That said, you’ll want to scrub your site from top to bottom — looking for anything from design inconsistencies to broken links. Here’s what you should look for during step one of your website redesign process.
- Broken buttons
- Design inconsistencies
- Places where you need to update your logo
- Non-responsive images
Beyond that though, there’s one huge step that you must accomplish during your website audit: Checking Google Analytics to see how specific site pages perform.
By looking at the traffic metrics on Google Analytics for your site pages, you can piece together what’s working and what’s not.
For example, if your blog gets hardly any traffic, but your main article pages perform well, you’ll want to ask more questions to figure out why.
Here are some questions you should ask:
- Does your blog have little traffic because of the design?
- What do users click on when they visit your article pages?
- How long do they stay on the page?
- What pages do they look at next?
From there, you can begin to piece together what makes certain pages successful, and what you need to tweak on other pages to make them equally as successful.
Goal of your website deep dive: When everything is said and done, at the end of step one, you should have an idea of pages that need help in the design department, where your branding needs an update, and what you want to update in terms of functionality.
2. Determine the goals you want to accomplish with your website
Often, the design of your website helps you complete your goals. When users visit your site, they often make a first impression based on organization and functionality — making your design extremely important.
You should take care to redesign your website based on the goals you want to accomplish. For example, if the main goal of your website is to sell products, you should design your website to lead users to your ecommerce pages.
If your goal is simply to keep users on your site pages, you should design your site with engagement in mind — featuring videos, images, and interactive elements.
When you determine your goals, it’ll help you create a concrete plan for your website design, since your goals determine site elements, functionality, and more.
Goal of determining your objective: Without a clear goal in mind, it’ll be nearly impossible to create a website that accomplishes it. When you do have a clear goal, it’ll be much easier to craft a website that allows you to reach it.
3. Gain inspiration from your competitors
Let’s make it clear up-front that you should never copy your competitors’ designs. However, there is no harm in drawing inspiration from them. After all, they’re your competition for a reason — because you share the same customer base.
Check out what works for other companies in terms of functionality and content.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do they feature a lot of images?
- What kinds of topics do they include in their navigation bar?
- How is their navigation arranged?
- Do they have a blog?
- What functionality do you really like about the website?
Answering these questions helps you gain inspiration for your own site and what elements you’d like to include.
Goal of gaining inspiration: Without inspiration, you’re wandering blindly into your website’s design. By looking at your competitions’ sites, you’ll be able to glean some inspiration that will help you create site elements that you may not have thought of before.
4. Create a map of your website hierarchy
Before you start your website redesign, it’ll be helpful to create a hierarchy of your site pages to determine how you’ll classify each of your pages.
You may want to create a different design for sub-pages, and a different design yet for pages within your sub-pages.
For example, if you sell clothing for men, women, and children, you might design a few “general” pages about each category. This design will likely be different from the design you use to show off each individual product.
When you create a website hierarchy or a map of your site pages, you’ll be able to determine how many different designs you need.
Goal of creating a website hierarchy wireframe: The goal is to end up with a list of designs that you need for your website. For example, your list might look like this:
- Homepage design
- Contact page design
- About us page design
- Category page design
- Sub-category page design
- Product page design
5. Hire a website redesign company
When you’re running your own business, it’s difficult to think about anything other than doing just that.
That’s why it’s in your best interest to hire a website redesign company that can take care of the process for you. Not only will it take the stress off your shoulders, but you can be certain that the job will be done right.
When you hire a website redesign company, you can rely on them to take care of all the steps we mentioned above — from looking at competitor sites to creating your website hierarchy.
We don’t just want to tell you about the beautiful work we do.
WE WANT TO SHOW YOU
We’ve built over
WEBSITES IN INDUSTRIES LIKE YOURS
View Our Past Work
Tested Technologies can help you work through your website redesign process
Tested Technologies is a top website redesign agency that can help you create and work through your website redesign process. We’ll get to know your goals, your competition, and your industry to create the best website redesign process possible.
We’ll work with you to help you create a website that drives traffic and results, and we won’t leave any stone unturned when it comes to creating your dream design.
If you want to learn more about the website redesign process steps that we use for our clients, contact us online for a free quote, or give us a call at 0802-583-7481!
The post Website Redesign Process: Your Website Redesign Strategy in 5 Steps appeared first on Tested Technologies Blog.
