There are a lot of great reasons to redesign a business website, but it’s important not to jump straight into your web design revamp without thinking it through carefully beforehand.

Many businesses start redesigning their website due to poor sales performance or reduced visitor numbers. However, planning out the redesign in detail prior to implementing any changes is critical to ensure the future success of your new website.

Reasons to revamp your company website

Some of the reasons you may be considering a total re-jig of your website include:

– to give it a responsive design that’s easy to view from any kind of internet-enabled device

– so social media links can be incorporated in a meaningful way to make most impact

– to make it more user-friendly and encourage visitors to stay on site for longer periods of time

– so you can incorporate all the latest tech trends and make your site look more modern and appealing

– to add more functions, tools or features to your site

– rebranding your business means your website will also need a makeover, so it’s in line with all new colours and typefaces

Considerations before changing any business website layout

Changing the layout of your website is an excellent way to refresh your brand image, particularly if you’re introducing new products or services.

Increased consumer use of mobile devices is another factor which can lead to a drop in visitor numbers for any sites that aren’t reactive enough or mobile-friendly.

Some of the major issues you need to think about before rushing into any website redesign include:

Clearly identify your reasons to redesign your website

In the first instance working out exactly why you want to upgrade your website can help you plan your actions much better.

Once you’ve identified key reasons for your site redesign you will be able to set the clear design objectives to help solve your problems.

Set measurable targets

Once that’s done you can work out the ways your new site design will help you reach business objectives and set the kind of goals that can be measured.

So, for example, if you plan to increase the amount of time visitors spend on your site, or perhaps decrease bounce rate by a set percentage, source the tools that help you measure these activities.

One goal which is easy to measure is site ranking, as you can quickly check on where your website appears in Google listings at any time.

Ensuring your targets can all be measured with accuracy will help you identify the returns on investment (ROI) made in your site redesign.

Plan site architecture

Working out the architecture of website upgrades is also an important aspect of all business website redesign.

You will need to take a good look at all existing pages and work out which ones need updating.

Ideally, create a simple draft of your proposed site architecture and suggestions for page layouts as this can help web developers redesign the site to your requirements much more quickly and easily.

Keep to your usual branding

You will probably already have brand guidelines in place, so it’s important that your website redesign follows these principles.

If the reason for your upgraded website is because you’ve changed company branding policy, then your entire site should be updated to reflect this.

This means using the same colour scheme, fonts, tone of voice and layouts throughout the entire site.

If you operate a bricks and mortar business in addition to your online site, your website branding should be consistent across both business outlets.

This offers the best user experience, as consumers can quickly learn to identify the hallmarks of your brand.

SEO (search engine optimisation)

Every successful website needs to be optimised for search, and this can be a layered activity which embraces lots of different things.

Finding the right keywords for your brand is an important aspect of any website redesign and should not be neglected as it will impact on the search results you achieve.

Auditing your current website and building detailed data analysis of its performance will be a useful comparison to measure the performance of your new site once it’s up and running.

User experience

The ways that users experience your site is another essential element to consider.

Building a detailed user experience (UX) profile means interpreting the ways your customers and visitors behave in the digital setting and entails making their online journey as pleasant as possible in order to encourage return visits.

Some pointers to look out for include site readability, colour schemes, website responsiveness, ease of navigation, etc.

Build a content strategy and calendar

It’s really easy to overlook the content that’s on your website at the time of redesign, but this will also need updating.

You need to make decisions on which content is staying, the texts that are being deleted and what content will need total rewrites.

Creating a content strategy can help you determine exactly what messages you want to convey to your audience and the ways you will set about this.

If you don’t already have a blog associated with your site, then this would be a good time to launch one.

Create a content calendar for the coming months or year to provide some indicator of the type of blog content you want to produce.

This can tie in effectively with your own product offerings and also any promotional activities or events planned for the future.

You may also want to think about the benefits of hiring content writers to create the sort of posts required on your blog.

As you can see from the above, there are lots of things to consider before leaping into any kind of business website redesign.

We can offer specialist website redesign services to any kind of business. We’re experts at taking rough website outlines from clients and turning them into the compelling website designs that appeal to contemporary consumers.

Get in touch today to find out more.