Poor search engine or search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. Slow-loading pages. Low conversion rates. These are just some of the reasons why it might be time to consider an entire website overhaul. Creating a few web design changes to your site could improve sales and leads and increase the visibility of your brand online. There’s no rush, though. Here are six things you should do before you redesign your pages.
1) Research Your Users/Target Audience
To create the best website for your visitors, you have to know who they are and what they like.
What are their preferences? What’s their browsing style? What keywords are they using? All this information or data will help you to make the best redesign for them and their desires.
2) Create a Web Redesign Checklist
A website redesign checklist ensures you have completed all the required steps before Web development starts. Typically, these lists include data on the prep work you should complete and some of the foremost common website design fails you need to avoid. Cross items off the checklist as you move closer to your redesign date.
3) Test Your Pages
Test your new website or pages with a select group of your customers to discover which features they like best. This is the ultimate way to experiment with your website before you “go live” and you can iron out any kinks, such as broken links and page elements that do not respond well. Remember, test your pages across varied net browsers and devices before you publish your new website.
Forty-four percent of website users or visitors would leave a company’s website if there was no phone number or contact information, while thirty-nine percent would stop engaging with a website if images take too long to load. It’s statistics like these that prove the importance and advantage of a Web redesign. Don’t jump the gun, though. Follow the seven tips above before you create any changes to your website design.
4) Analyze What’s Working and What Isn’t
Before you can create smart changes to your website design, you need to decide which aspects and features to change.
What parts of your web design are working? Use analytics to see what your users or visitors find valuable, and what they don’t. The stuff that’s not operating or working is expendable — you can and may either get rid of it or improve it.
Your website design directly affects your digital marketing performance, so using analytics to create smart decisions is a must. What pages aren’t getting visited? What CTAs aren’t getting clicked? Gather these bits of information to help you make crucial decisions about your new website design.
5) Decide on a Special Offer
Launch your new website with a special and great offer that accelerates sales. Decide or select one thing that will get your organization noticed, such as a complimentary product, coupon code, or free online training course. You can then advertise this offer on your social media pages or platform and in your email newsletter.
6) Make Sure It’s Responsive
The statistics are clear: In 2016, mobile browsing bypassed desktop browsing, and it’s solely continued to increase since then. visitors are on their tablets and phones checking out your website, so you have to make sure it’s up to the task.
This means your website design needs to be responsive — It has to be able to reconfigure itself based on the user’s screen size and device. Visitors expect this more and more from their browsing experience, and if you don’t have it, they’ll look elsewhere.
