Is It Time for a Website Redesign?
Are you feeling like your website might be past its prime? Is your website traffic and leads decreasing each month? If the answer is yes then it might be time for a website redesign. Here are some questions and items to consider when deciding if now is the right time for your business to get a website redesign. Choosing a custom web design could solve many of the issues facing your business and increase your ROI.
Things to Consider for a Website Redesign:
There are many factors when it comes to considering your future website redeisgn. Who will do the website redeisng? Will you choose a custom web design? How will the new website layout look? What marketing strategy will you use to drive better rankings in the SERPs and increase organic traffic?
All of these are important questions in your website redeisgn. Here our some of our expert opinions on what to consider before a website redesign:
Are Visitors Recognizing Your Brand When They Visit Your Website?
Is your site still a dime piece? Or has your brand grown and left your website behind? It’s important that not only the colors and styles of your brand are updated, but also the content. Your company might have new goals or even a whole new personality and your new website redesign should represent that.
Is it resistant to change? A website redesign shouldn’t make you want to pull your hair out. As an extension of your business, it should be constantly updated; and just like the frontend of your site, the backend should be clean and clear to navigate. It should be easy to constantly update in a content editor, not hardcoded. Adding images, links, and new pages shouldn’t take all day!
Have Your Conversions or Sales Started to Decrease?
Is her milkshake still bringing all the users to the yard? Maybe it’s time to start looking at your landing pages and calls to action. Take a deep dive into the layout of those pages.
Are you sending the right message? Or is the message not even being found? If not, then now is the time to make the changes to your customers’ journey and what they see along the way.
Can it roll with the punches? Is your site optimized for mobile (responsive)? If not, it should be! Depending on your target demographic, users might only be viewing your website on mobile. And if your site can’t adapt, users will quickly run away.
Is Your Site Compatible with All Modern Browsers?
Can you find her in a crowd? As a business, you should be aware of how your site is performing on all platforms. As we know, not all browsers are the same but it’s important your website doesn’t falter with any of them.
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Are You Being Found Through Search Engines?
Remember your website is a living entity, it needs continual attention to grow and thrive. Just like a house plant needs water and sunshine, your website needs new or updated content to stay relevant to search engines.
What are the analytics telling you? It’s important to know where users are coming to your site from and what pages they land on. Knowing this information will not only help you be found but help you be SEEN!
What Journey is Your User Taking?
Does it take a map and a compass to navigate through your site? Just like a road trip, the user has a final destination, but getting there shouldn’t be difficult or boring! User journey maps are a great tool to help visualize the user’s interactions. These findings will help the designer prioritize each task according to the user’s needs. When creating a user journey map for your website redesign there are three important things to consider; User persona, scope, and touchpoints.
Who is my user? Don’t assume you know your user. Do the research. Take the time to discover much more than just their age, sex, likes/dislikes. Are they the decision-maker or just the bridge between you and the decision-maker? Are they tech-savvy? Do they know what they want or do they need options? Knowing this information will help eliminate false assumptions.
Have you defined the scope? Scopes can show beginning to end experiences to more detailed maps that hone in on one particular interaction, like signing up for a newsletter. Each scenario describes the real or anticipated action that the journey map addresses.
What are my touchpoints? These are the physical actions and interactions the user has with your website. It’s important to anticipate not only all of the main touchpoints but all items associated with each touchpoint. For example, “Get an Estimate” channels can be — Contact Us or Get More Information.
Are You Leveraging Heatmaps to Better Understand the User’s Journey?
Bring the Heat! Heatmaps are visual representations of the activity on your site by using warm and cool colors to help identify high traffic areas and interactions. The best way to utilize a heat map is to look into the pages that have the most impact on your conversion rate: the home page, landing pages, and high-conversion blog posts. Understanding this info is crucial before any website redesign work gets started.
What’s happening on your homepage? Your homepage is the introduction to your business. Pay attention to which area users are scrolling through and if they are hovering over your main content and clicking on call-to-actions. This will help identify exactly where the most vital elements of your homepage need to live, reduce your bounce rate, and increase your conversion rate!
Is your landing page successful? When successful, landing pages convert each user into a lead. Knowing the movement of the user will help cast the best design to gain more leads. Optimizing landing pages should be a key factor in your website redesign.
Are your blog posts converting? Call to action (CTA) placement on your blog posts can greatly improve your conversion rate. For example, a single CTA at the end of your post can be visually engaging, but may only generate a small number of leads. Your user might be more inclined to click an anchor text CTA that lives above the fold at the top of the page. Giving the user more opportunities to connect is key!
Is It Time For a Website Redesign?
If you have answered yes to the above questions, or even some of them, then it may in fact be time to consider a website redesign. You may just be looking to boost decreasing sales or want to better understand your website user’s journeys. Maybe you’re worried that your site is no longer compatible with modern browsers or that you aren’t being found on search engines. Perhaps you just feel that it’s time to give that site a good ole facelift! Any of the issues mentioned in this post could be keeping your website from performing at its peak, and ultimately costing you business.
Nearly 80% of the websites that I visit could seriously benefit from an update or require a total website redesign. Which would have a direct, positive impact on their revenue.
Darren Fox, President and Founder of Idea Marketing Group
So if you think that your website may fall into that category, don’t worry, you’re not alone. The next thing you need to do is start planning how you’ll address the website issues and put your site back ahead of the competition with a website redesign.
Our recommendation? Choose the experts that can work within your budget to get the best possible results. You aren’t doing yourself or your business any favors if you cheap out on the website. Unless you’re a developer, it’s usually not a DIY fix. If your website needs a redesign, it’s time to find the right web developers.
