Planning Your Website Redesign Strategy

Your website has more of an effect on your bottom line than you may think. As a digital representation of your business, it’s often the facilitator of the first impression to a potential customer. 75% of people judge a business by its website, so if yours is out-dated, difficult to navigate, or not mobile-responsive, then it’s time to start planning for a website redesign. 

An effective website is made up of more than just graphics and copy, it consists of key elements that contribute to the purpose of the website. 75% of website redesigns fail or don’t perform well, mainly due to poor planning. To set yourself up for success, it’s a good idea to map out your redesign before you begin the project.

Characteristics of an Effective Website

Brand Messaging

At first glance, your messaging should be able to answer a visitor’s most immediate questions: What is your business? What is the benefit of using your products/services? What sets you apart from your competitors? 

Users will judge whether or not your brand is a potential fit for them based on their first impression of your website, and your messaging has a big effect on turning those visitors into customers. 

Below is a great example of benefit-driven messaging on the homepage; You get a clear understanding of what the business is offering, and what sets them apart from their competitors. 

Website Structure

Website structure plays a big role in your user experience. A great website should be easy to navigate and offer a familiar layout to the user. Put yourself in your visitors’ shoes – Would you want to stay and click around if you landed on your site? 

Offer simple steps the user can take in order to easily convert. For example, once a visitor clicks on a product page, it should be apparent as to where they need to be clicking next to either purchase, request a quote, or even view related products. 

Identity/Design

A great website design has the ability to tell your current and prospective customers about your business and its values, just by the look and feel of it. Visitors that are on a site that is organized, clean, and easy to use relate those characteristics to how the company conducts its business. At a glance, users will judge whether or not your brand is a good fit for them just by the personality of your website.

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Website Funnel

A basic (but important) step in when creating your website redesign strategy. Develop a sequence of steps, messaging, and touchpoints to turn your prospects into customers. 

By understanding how your visitors travel through your funnel, you remove a lot of uncertainty from your business. As an example, let’s say that 1 in 10 visitors in your funnel and make a purchase of $100. If it costs your business $3 to get that person into your funnel, you’ve just made a profit of $70 for every $30 you spent. That’s a win!

Remember, there are marketing automation tools out there that can do the work for you and progress each prospect through the funnel. Manual actions aren’t required every time someone fills out a form. 

Online Trust

A website may look great, but there’s more to it than just great fonts and images. Earning a user’s trust is essential to closing the sale. Begin building this trust and establishing a connection by including testimonials on your website. This has proven to increase conversions by 58%. 

Encourage your customers to leave you reviews and feedback not only for your website, but on Google and your social media platforms as well. 

Website Conversions

An effective website is created for conversions, or actions you want your users to take. Examples might be subscribing to a newsletter, filling out an application, or even purchasing a product. With a logical funnel in place and a focus on your brand messaging, structure, design, and established trust, your new website will no doubt perform well. 

Set Smart Website Goals

Website Business Goals

Before you begin searching for your web design company, it’s important to understand the expectations of your new website. You’ll first determine what you want your website to achieve:

• Bring in more leads
• Increase the average order spend
• Boost the number of phone calls

Online Marketing Goals

After defining what you want to achieve, you’ll then determine how you will achieve it. Start by taking a look at your current KPIs. How many form fills are you receiving? What kind of traffic is your website seeing? Which pages are performing well over others? Run through a simple website audit to get a better idea of opportunities you are missing, then you can create a goal that is both measurable and attainable, such as decreasing your bounce rate, improving your website’s SEO, or increasing the average time spent on the site. 

Website Technology Goals

One of the biggest factors included in the decision to redesign a website is the frustration with technology. We see clients all the time that are searching for an alternative to their CMS that is unsecure, is not user-friendly, or doesn’t allow for new pages to be easily created.

Your brand new website is your clean slate, so now is the time to create your dream technology list. Brainstorm a list of all the functionality or marketing efforts you’ve been wanting to do, but haven’t been able to because of technical restrictions. 

Avoid Website Redesign Mistakes

Focus On Your Website Strategy First

Your website exists to increase sales and grow your business, and every decision you make about your website redesign should stem from that goal. Redesigning for the purpose of having a modern site with new technology is simply the wrong approach. 

Begin by focusing on your website’s business and marketing goals first, then search for the best technology that can support those goals. 

Set Strong Website Goals

Before looking at website designers, you should be able to answer the question, “What’s the goal of your new website?”. If your answer is simply “To look better”, you may want to reconsider. 

A great alternative could be “To increase incoming leads by 20%”. A goal like this will give the right guidance to the designer as to what elements to focus on in order to reach that goal. Other examples might include creating a landing page for each product type, increasing traffic by 50%, or perhaps lifting online applications by 25 each month. Without a clear business goal, you’ll have no way of measuring the success of your investment. 

Plan Your Website Budget

Although a website redesign is never a cut and dry number, it’s all too common for a business to underestimate the cost of a website redesign. To avoid setting yourself up for failure, it’s important to understand all the costs associated with a redesign:

• Planning and Discovery
• Design
• Development
• SEO Setup
• Copywriting
• Photography/Video Production
• Project Management
• Hosting
• Launch Setup
• Quality Assurance Testing

Every industry, business, and website will have different needs, but if your web partner doesn’t educate you on the costs of having too low of a budget or cuts corners, your website and your investment can suffer as a result. 

Partner With the Right Web Design Company

Your website redesign is an investment into your business, and the web company you partner with will have a major impact on the success or failure of the site. Thoroughly research potential agencies to make sure the web company you select aligns with your business’s goals and future ambitions. Your questions should focus on a company’s size, team specialties, design style, value-added services, portfolio, etc. To fully prepare you, we’ve created a list of 20 Questions to Ask Before Selecting Your Web Designer. 

Put it all together

When preparing for your website redesign, it’s important to focus on your strategy before diving right into the images and features. Start by answering the question “What will be the purpose of your website and how will it contribute to your growth”, then build your website up from there. But if you’re still unsure of how to put your plan together, reach out to our web design experts. They know a thing or two about website redesigns.