A website redesign can reenergize your web presence, but only if you do it the right way. If you want your website redesign to be a huge success, you need to have a vision and detailed plan. Whether you’re working with a professional web designer like us or complete the redesign in-house, it’s critical to have a clear definition of your goals.

A successful website redesign project requires a process. Long before the design stage, you need to start planning. Planning is an important part of a website redesign. It can be time-consuming, but it’s necessary to build a website that will generate quality traffic and convert it into paying customers.

Our website redesign checklist will simplify the process and help you avoid creating a total flop.

How do I redesign an existing website?

What are your goals for the new website design?

To succeed with your website redesign, start with your goals. Clearly defined goals will give you a direction toward a design that works. Your goals will also serve as a reference during the project. At the end of the redesign, you can verify that the project met your goals.

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The following are the best reasons for a website redesign:

  • A dated look and feel. Unfortunately, the website is not the highest priority for management. This is especially true for a business with a low-performance website.
  • Low conversions. Poor conversion rate is one of the best reasons for a new website. If your website doesn’t produce prospects, leads, and sales, you need a new website.
  • High bounce rate. A website with a high bounce rate is a problem you need to fix. A high bounce rate is the result of low-quality traffic. Your site may be optimized for the wrong keywords, and it attracts the wrong traffic.
  • Time on site. Generally, businesses want to increase the amount of time visitors spend on their websites.
  • Low traffic. Let’s face it. A website without traffic has zero value to your business.

Contact us now if you need help redesigning, optimizing, or updating your website.

How to audit your current website before a redesign?

Before you are ready to start your website redesign, you need to audit the following:

  • ADA accessibility – It’s surprising how few business websites are ADA compliant. Make sure that your site supports users with disabilities after the redesign.
  • Content – Don’t rush through the website content audit. It takes time to carefully evaluate current website content. During the website content audit, you can determine if it still:
    • Up to date
    • Helpful
    • Aligns with your business goals
  • Organization – Since the previous redesign, you might want to reorganize your website differently. This is your chance to change the organization.
  • Design – You might have an outdated website, but some elements might be effective. You want to make sure that your new design retains the useful elements.
  • Usability – Are there simpler ways to handle navigation, support, and customer engagement? The redesign should improve the overall usability of your site.
  • SEO – Are your pages optimized for your target keywords? The competition for search rankings has increased tremendously recently. No redesign project can be declared a success without auditing your website’s SEO.

How to set measurable goals for a website redesign?

For goals to be effective, they need to be measurable. It’s critical to set your goals based on data. Dive into your website analytics data. Understand what’s happening before you begin the redesign, and set measurable goals. Instead of more visitors, you need to define your goal with a real number.

  • Create a list of target keywords. Document the current search engine position of your target keywords. For each keyword, you should set a percentage increase.
  • List the highest and lowest performing web pages. Looking at your analytics, you will know exactly how many visitors a page gets. Based on the current numbers, you can set measurable goals.
  • What is the total number of monthly visitors now, and what is your target number after the redesign? Let’s say your website received 15,000 visitors per month. The goal should be either a percentage increase (100% greater traffic) or a number (30,000 visitors per month).
  • What is the current bounce rate, and what is your goal? If the bounce rate is at 80%, 60% bounce rate is a solid, measurable goal.

Need help with your website redesign? Contact us now!

Redesign your website on the right platform

There are countless website platforms available on the market today. But, if you want a professional website, you need a platform designed for businesses. Currently, WordPress is the best website platform. It is a secure, robust, and search engine-friendly website platform. Web design agencies can customize WordPress to fit your goals. WordPress is also free and open-source, so you are not locked into some proprietary website platform.

Reasons you should redesign your website on WordPress:

  • If you want a robust content management system for your website, you’ll love WordPress. It’s a free website CMS.
  • A highly customizable website platform.
  • WordPress is a great platform for small websites, and it scales easily. As your company grows, you can keep your website running on WordPress.
  • SEO is easy on WordPress.  You understand the critical role of SEO when redesigning a website. WordPress helps you simplify on-page optimization.
  • Securing your website is a breeze on WordPress. In addition to frequent updates, you can fortify your website with valuable security plugins.

Should you hire a professional to redesign your website?

If you want the job done right, you should hire a professional web design agency like us. DIY projects only look easy on a TV show, but what they don’t show you is the countless hours of behind-the-scenes work. It’s not that you can’t learn the skills necessary for a website redesign. But why would you spend countless hours learning a set of skills that you would only use once every two or three years? It’s really not the best use of your time.

For most businesses, the best thing to do is to hire a professional. Working with a professional web designer, you don’t have to increase your workload. The whole process will be smoother. That said, there are costs involved. But a website is a business asset that will produce value for your business for years to come, so it makes sense to make the investment.

From a project management point of view, it’s straightforward. You discuss your goals with the designer. You share the data from the planning and research phase of the redesign project. This is the time to discuss the shortcomings of your current site. Once you agree to work together, you can rely on the expertise and experience of the design agency to guide you through the redesign process and do the heavy lifting for you.

During the project, it’s critical to consider your goals. You cannot sign off on the redesign until you have made sure that all of your redesign goals and wishes were met.

Get the most out of your website redesign with new content

The quality of the website content is just as important as the design itself. Looks are important, but quality content is even more important. If you don’t have internal staff to rewrite the content of your website, make sure to hire a professional writer for the job.

The relationship between website design and content is similar to the relationship between a painting and its frame. Essentially, the design of your website is the frame around the website content. The content of your website can differentiate your business.

Redesign your website with your competitors in mind

Spying on your competition in business is rewarded. When you compare your business website to the competition, you can redesign it based on what you have learned. Part of competitor analysis is, to be honest with yourself.  If you find something the competition does better than you, learn from it. It’s also important to avoid copying others. Instead, create something that’s even better.

Answer the following questions as you evaluate the websites of competitors:

  • What is the quality of the content? You may find a competitor with epic content that could help you develop a more effective content strategy in the future.
  • What types of content do they include on their sites? You may find a site that uses video more effectively than others.
  • How frequently do they publish new blog posts?
  • What types of support features do they have? Some sites use live chat or chatbots effectively.
  • Are their sites optimized for relevant keywords? How do they rank for relevant keywords?

How to redesign your website without losing your rankings?

If you aren’t careful, the SEO of your website could suffer after a redesign. Make sure that your designer understands the techniques for redesigning a website without losing SEO.

Here is how to redesign your website with SEO in mind:

  • Use a WordPress redirect plugin – It will make sure that your redesigned website uses the same URLs as your old website.
  • Set up a 404 page – In case a page goes missing after the redesign, a 404 page will make sure that users can still access your site.
  • Include keywords in page titles – Make sure that each page title includes the most relevant keyword phrase.
  • Optimize images – Make sure your images are optimized for your target keywords.
  • Test site speed – A faster website can rank higher than a comparable slow-loading website.
  • Fix broken links – For optimal SEO, you should eliminate all broken links from your website. Broken links are a sign of neglect in terms of search engine rankings, and they will hurt your rankings.
  • Responsive – Make sure your new website has a mobile-friendly, responsive design.

Keep your old website online during the redesign

The new website should be developed on a temporary URL. If you take your website offline during the project, you will hurt the rankings of your website. A website offline could also tarnish the reputation of your business. Never publish an “Under Construction” page. It’s so 1995. Just keep your old site online, and you will make the switch once the redesign is finished.

How to set a website redesign budget?

Setting a website redesign budget requires careful consideration. A large business can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a website redesign. Small businesses often spend thousands of tens of thousands of dollars. But if you only look at the dollar signs, you are missing the point. When it comes to setting a website redesign budget, you need to consider ROI or Return on Investment.

If the goal of a small business is to increase sales by 25% after a website redesign, you need to consider a few numbers:

  • What is the yearly revenue of the business? For example, if you want to increase the revenue of a business that generates $5,000,000 in sales a year by 25%, the business can expect an increase of $1,250,00 in yearly revenue.
  • What is the cost of the website redesign? Even if the website redesign costs your business $125,000, it’s only 10% of the expected revenue increase. When you start looking at the cost of a website redesign, it looks reasonable.

But, you could redesign your website more cheaply if you do it without a professional. If you go the DIY route, you cannot expect your website to earn millions of dollars. It’s simply an unrealistic goal.

Check the spelling before you publish the new website

Spelling errors and grammatical errors can be embarrassing. You’ve worked hard to redesign your website. Please don’t ruin it by allowing spelling errors on your site. Pay an editor to proofread the site. It’s worth a little bit of investment to make sure that you have a high-quality website.

Test website forms

After the redesign, make sure that all of the forms work correctly. Make test submissions to check that the appropriate person receives the form submissions. If your forms don’t work, you could lose valuable leads and sales.

There are no secrets about successfully redesigning a website. But there are important steps to take to guarantee success.

Need help with your website redesign? Contact us now!