At some point, it’s inevitable for your business to update and introduce changes to your existing website.
Redesigning your website can be intimidating at first, especially if you find inspiration on other people’s website pages. You can easily get overwhelmed with deciding exactly what you could do to modernize your design, while still meeting your overall business goals.
So, we prepared a website redesign checklist and redesign tips for you to remember when you’re looking to bring a new face to your current website.
#1- Audit the Problems of Your Current Site
Before the full website redesign, document some things that you like about your existing site, as well as what you don’t like. Try to also think back on any problems, complaints or things that went wrong with the website in the past.
Some business website owners do the redesign process impulsively without dealing with the elephant in the room. In effect, some problems remain unresolved, and the new website design breeds another set of troubles that are costly to fix.
Ask for a website audit report from your new web design and development team before you redesign your website. If you don’t have a web team, write down the most obvious problems you spot in a spreadsheet and organize it later on.
#2- Look at Your Website Metrics
After you write down the most visible problems of your web design, it’s time to dig deeper. Check if your web page performs as expected by comparing it to standard metrics.
Get a snapshot of your website’s performance, including SEO-friendliness, site speed, and accessibility, using Google tools like Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights.
Be Data Driven
Now head over to Google Analytics and really study the site’s bounce rate. Do you need better content marketing strategies, or does the design drive away your site visitors? Do your figures perform well against your competitor’s websites?
Helpful Tip: If your website loads slowly, maybe it’s time to build your next site on other content management systems, like WordPress to speed things up.
Advanced Tip: Do you know about heatmaps? Try to install and study a heatmap solution on the site so you can actually see user behavior, and what spots on the page are “hot,” and what areas are “not.” Focus on improving those colder areas of pages, especially the front page of the website redesign.
#3- Specify the Parts that Need Changing
After documenting the problems, you found in steps one and two, specify the website content and elements that need to be revamped by your web designer.
Think about new graphics, logos and even CTA’s (calls to action) in each page, and be prepared to discuss your research with the entire team during the website redesign process.
Why Is Your Website Slow?
If you discover that your digital marketing efforts don’t prosper because of a sluggish website, you should research solutions, and address the necessary actions to improve the loading speed.
Suppose you found out that the content management system or hosting provider can’t keep up with your website’s demands. In that case, you should jot it down to alert your web development department about the issues that need immediate action.
#4- Find the Right Team for Your Website Redesign Project
After deciding what should be done, it’s time to form the perfect team to bring your ideas to fruition. You can hire a freelancer if you’re on a tight budget, but if you want a stress-free website redesign experience, hiring a local website design agency is the way to go.
At Direct Allied Agency, we have our own internal teams that you can count on, so you don’t have to waste time, money, and energy on hiring the right expertise in each department. We also wrote a very helpful article here on how to avoid website scams if you’re thinking about hiring a web designer.
#5- Follow Search Engine Optimization Best Practices
Rebuilding your website gives you a great opportunity to update your SEO strategy to ensure your site appears on search engines and your target audience can explore your redesigned website.
You can read this article on how to evaluate your own blog post setup for better SEO performance. We recommend you assign a content writer to rewrite the unoptimized articles and include spot-on meta descriptions.
Clone Your URL’s, Or Redirect Them
Some inexperienced freelancers and developers don’t pay attention to your current URL structure, permalinks and other important checks that need to be made when replacing a website. This step is absolutely critical, so be sure you bring it up and always use proper page titles, meta titles and schema setup.
#6- Ensure Your New Site Loads Well on Mobile Devices
The overwhelming majority of website visitors use their mobile phones to access the internet, and it has been over a decade since people have been building responsive websites. We recommend keeping your visual elements minimal, and your file sizes small.
#7 Seek Feedback
Once your redesigned site is up, ask for your visitor’s insights about your site’s visual and functional aspects. Perform user testing if needed and incorporate their feedback to improve your site continuously.
With proper planning, you can present your site as your virtual business card that’s too good to be ignored. From the few tips we shared, we hope you apply them to give life to your new website.
