You are no longer satisfied by your website ? You wish to change the design or completely change its structure ? Therefore, a redesign of your website is necessary.
The creation of a website relies on two important principles: a creative part that represents the design of the site and a functional part. It is important to ensure cohesion between both to create a website that is not only beautiful, but also meets the needs of users.
There are major differences between the creation and the redesign of a website. Indeed, a new website has to start from scratch, i.e., it is the first version of the site and there are no other versions to compare with. Whereas for redesign, you can rely on the experience of the site to correct issues that surfaced the first time it was deployed. Therefore, the stakes to do it the right way are higher.
A successful website creation and a successful redesign are not the same thing.
So, what are the most common pitfalls to avoid and the best practices to follow when redesigning a website ?
The following are the 9 steps to succeed at redesigning your website :
Examine your current website
What is that you like or dislike about your current website?
Redesign is the perfect opportunity to ask yourself all the questions relevant to your website. Many people confuse redesign for a total remake of the design of a website while it is not necessarily the case. What do you want to do with your old pages?
Create a list of all the things you like about your site : colors, typography, and functionalities. Create another list of the things you want to change. Remember : a redesign is an improvement on the current site. Keeping the things you like about the website will save you time in order to concentrate on the things you don’t like.
However, in case you like nothing anymore about your current website, then it is time to change everything.
Analyse the Competition
There are always interesting things to learn from competitors. Beyond design, do also look at the sources of traffic and the strategies used by your competitors to generate prospects and sales. To perform a detailed analysis of the competition, use a tool like www.similarweb.com to find their key performance indicators and compare them to yours.
Why go so far in analysis ? Well, redesign is the occasion to redesign the tree of your website to position yourself in new searches. It is the time to think about your referencing strategies and perform, eventually, the necessary remedies. Because, indeed, you will not perform a redesign every day.
Define your audience with precision
Perhaps you have thought about your audience before creating your current website. It is important to keep focusing on the needs of your audience and, for this reason, you need to know them better.
When you define your audience clearly, you know which information your visitors hope to find on the website.
However, if you haven’t already done that, it is time to do it as you rely on your previous experience. And even if you have already done this, your prospects must have evolved over time. A study will only be beneficial to you.
Exploring new functionalities
How can you improve the functionalities of your website ?
Now that you have precisely identified the desires of your clients, it is time to add or modify your website’s functionalities: creating a private space for your clients or adding commenting spaces, for example. What is even better, is to write down a list of functionalities that you want to implement in your website.
As is always the case with internet, you need statistical tools to analyse the behaviour of your website’s visitors. Google Analytics is the perfect tool for that. It will show you how internet users interact with your website. The improvement you will implement must make navigation easier and increase the conversion rate.
This step requires you more work than the design part of the website. But unfortunately, it is often neglected despite its importance. A good design can seduce first time visitors. An efficient and intuitive navigation, on the other hand, will attract recurrent visitors.
Use the Google Search Console Data
Is your website in good health ? Google Search Console gives you precious information on indexation and error pages. If you don’t already have a Google Search Console account, it is time to create one.
A redesign of your website is the opportunity to get rid of all the functions that don’t work and start right tracks.
Putting in place a content strategy
You, surely, know that content is an important pilar of your website.
Is your current website pertinently dwelling on themes that are related to your activities? To attract new visitors and make them return to your website, you need to create unique and original content. Regularly publishing is also extremely important.
The new structure of your website must serve the content strategy : how to foreground your news? Should you create a dedicated page for that or integrate them in every category? Making an editorial calendar will help you regularly publish content on your website.
Do not forget that content does not necessarily mean text. Images and videos are also very much appreciated content sources.
Rethink your digital strategy
Though we were talking about your content strategy, you need to optimize your entire digital strategy when redesigning your website.
For example, if you intend to create monthly or weekly newsletter to improve your email marketing strategy, would be your website able to transform visitors into subscribers ?
Use the redesign of your website as an opportunity to implement the optimizations that are necessary for your digital marketing.
Optimize Referencing
The remake of an internet website is a delicate process from an SEO point of view. You have worked so hard to put in place a performing website and to occupy positions in search engines. It would be sad to lose all of that. Talking about all the SEO operations that have to be made requires a dedicated article. It’s easier, though, to hire a referencing specialist.
Putting in place a Dashboard
This is going to be your guide post throughout the redesign process. Although it can be time consuming, you must have a sufficiently precise dashboard to be able to perform all the steps and follow the evolution of the redesign. All the lists previously mentioned must be referenced in this document.
If your project contains payments with precisely dated steps, if will be easier for you to achieve them and adhere to your objectives.
Respecting the timeline is vital if you want to succeed at your redesign project. Do you have a show room where you want to launch a new product? You cannot allow yourself to be late when it comes to the redesign of your website as the success of your business depends on that.
Now is the time for action while keeping in mind all these advices.
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