2020 is here. It's time to give your website a fresh new identity. Remember, your website represents not only you but your entire business. Your website works as your online business card. It must look unique, attractive, and detailed. The re-designing is an opportunity for you to fix all those small issues or things that you do not like on your website. Your re-design can make your website more user-friendly and help you revamp your online identity.
A well-researched website redesign project will help you take up your marketing efforts as well as your business revenues too. Your website design is the first thing noticed by any user. You need to please & retain them on your website. Plan your strategies according to it. Here we have discussed a few of the crucial things to consider for your website re-designing process. Plan your strategy accordingly, and get the best results out of it. Now, let's start by discussing topics one by one.
Evaluate your website first
Before starting the project, the evaluation of your website is very crucial. Tasks like redesigning do not happen often. If you are doing it, you should focus on every little aspect of the website. Check which pages need improvement, which pages can be kept intact. Check analytics reports of different pages. Check from where are your visitors and coming? And where are they going next? There you will have a better picture of your website. The pages that bring more traffic, conversion, and higher user retention can be kept intact. With study, you will have a better idea of what needs to be changed? You will have an idea of well-performing and weaker pages of your site. You can optimize well-performing pages according to your new theme. And do the entire redesign of other pages. The evaluation will help you with several things related to your website.
Be aware of trends
Before re-designing a website, you should know all the latest
web design trends in the industry too. You should have an idea of all of them. The website design industry is ever-changing. The innovative designers always come out with new trends and styles for the users. You need to be aware of all the latest trends. For example, currently, the trends of minimalistic design & black mode are trading. The combination of both can make your website attractive, modern, clean, and easy on the eyes. There should be an option to enable dark mode on devices. Apart from this, there are several trends too. You need to keep track of all of them.
Go through your competitors too
The competitor's website could be the best source of inspiration for your website. Do not directly copy them, take inspiration from them. From competitors, you will know how things are evolving? You also get to know several new things in your business domain too. Evaluate their website from the perspective of a web designer as well as competitors too. From it, you will know, Are they following best practices in the industry? Are they better than you at something? Are there any areas of improvement for your business? Look for similarity in yours and competitor’s websites. Make a list of things that you liked from the website of your competitors. Learn beneficial ideas from your competitors, and try to implement them on your website.
Focus on improving conversion
With redesigning your website, you can work on this most crucial aspect of your website too. With re-designing, make your website as conversion-friendly as possible. As we have discussed in point one, study the data of analytics thoroughly. Study the different sources of traffic. And also check where the users are going next. Find the obstacles in the process of conversion. Work on your weak points. The website design is not only about the good looks & attractive color schemes. The website should be usable too. Users should be able to quickly find the next point in the final process of the conversion. Study the current process of the conversion on your website step by step. There will always be some areas of improvement. Work on those areas, and make them as easy as possible.
Study your target audience
The study of your target audience before designing the website is also necessary. In the end, your target audience will visit your website daily and will bring sales & conversion to your store. You need to proceed with the user first approach for your design. If your targeted audience is female, design it with the more feminine approach. If you are a fun brand targeted towards youngsters, a minimal approach with some funky colors would definitely please them. And not just design, the content copies on your website should also be created by keeping their likings into mind. Write your content copies that can generate engagement with your targeted audience. Understand your business, understand your audience, and apply it while redesigning your website.
Keep SEO in mind
As an online business owner, you must know the importance of
SEO for any website redesign. You must design your website by keeping all the aspects of SEO in mind. The majority of the time during the redesigning, the designers change the architecture of the website. And many URLs get changed, and the website ends up getting several 301 redirects. And according to studies, it is found that so many 301 redirects increase the page load times. Which also harmfully affects the search engine ranking of your website. Hence keep them as limited as possible. And below, I have mentioned a few more points that must be considered while redesigning.
- All the pages of your website should be optimized with title, description, and permalinks.
- Make sure that the images on your website are optimized as well. Compress the size of images without losing out on quality.
- Your website should be easily navigable too. Do not go overboard with categories and subcategories. Keep it simple and easy.
- Make sure the loading times of pages are not getting affected by the new design.
The redesigning of your website will help you increase the marketing aspects of your website. Make sure it is appearing on the top position of the search.
Rethink your content strategy too
As you are redesigning your website, your visitors will be expecting new content from you too. You need to write new & engaging content copies of different pages on your website. And apart from text-based blog posts, currently, the videos and the podcasts are also trending. If you can produce your content in all the mentioned forms, that will surely be beneficial for you. And if you are not able to give enough focus to all different categories, that is alright too. Select the type of content that suits you the best, and help your audience with it. Instead of explaining the advantages, you can win the buyers with your knowledgeable content too.
Start re-designing, followed by testing & modifications
Now, if you have an idea of what your website will look like, start your redesign process. Guide your team with all different aspects of design. Give them all the necessary information, data, and resources to create the final product. Help them with all things related to graphics & content. Have them in touch throughout the process. Once the final product is ready, it's time for testing and modifications (modify if needed only). See how user users are behaving with the new design. See how the traffic varies on all the leading pages. Are your users liking it or not? Track data of analytics and conversions. For any section of the website, if a better design idea has come up in your mind, modify it. Continue the evaluation & testing process until you are fully satisfied with your design.
The final strategy
Study all the above factors thoroughly and plan your strategies according to them. While studying the above factors, if possible, make notes. And apply them in your ultimate strategy. And also consider future business expansion & milestones too. Consider your business and your audience, and make the final design according to it. Understand the fact that your website should look in such a way that it should be able to make any visitor explore more of your website. Make the designs of the landing pages in such a way that it automatically attracts visitors to visit more pages. Also, have your team of designers in constant communication with you. Guide them for all the sections of your website. Explain to them about your imagination of the design. Detailed communication with them will help them understand your perspective of design. And the end product will be up to your expectations.
Conclusion
So, that was our list of things to consider before redesigning your website. All these things are essential for your final product. Perform your redesign process with the consideration of all these factors and make your final product according to it. The website redesigning is one of the very important aspects of any business. Timely evaluation and modification are crucial for keeping your pace with the competition. Consider all these things before the redesign, and get the best results for your business.
