70 to 80% of consumers check out a business online before making a purchase. If your website is outdated or a headache to use, you could end up losing those potential customers.
Today, knowing how to redesign a website with your customers in mind is essential. Otherwise, your competitors will look credible and relevant while you’re stuck in the stone ages. As your digital storefront, your website needs to speak for your brand and your company’s capabilities.
Ready for an upgrade? Here are the eight website redesign process steps you need for success.
With these tips, you can redesign your website, stand out from the crowd, and get a jump on the competition!
1. Audit Your Current Site
Before you can learn how to redesign a website, you should look at the one you already have. What content do you want to keep? What’s missing?
Completing a full audit of your current site can help you determine what steps to take during the website redesign process.
Feel free to look at your current site analytics. Check for:
- The pages with the most visitors
- Pages with a high lag time
- The pages with the highest clickthrough rates
- Pages with high bounce rates
Bounce rates indicate pages people visited without clicking around. You’ll want to improve these pages to encourage visitors to click and explore. A high bounce rate and low clickthrough rate could impact your ranking on search engines.
You might even realize that some pages you wanted to cut produce a lot of traffic. Keep those!
You can then use these high-performing pages to help you make improvements on low-performing pages.
Look for pages that:
- Generate a lot of traffic
- Have high clickthrough rates
- Encourage a lot of conversions
As a result, you’re able to understand your weak points and high points to redesign your website.
2. Check Out the Competition
To learn how to redesign a website and make an impact, you need to know what already works within your industry. As you start envisioning your redesigned website, feel free to check out the competition.
What do you like about their site pages? What do you not like? Making note of their advantages and weakness can help inform your own design decisions.
It’s also important to notice the common elements between these websites. For example, you might want to take note if none of your competitors mention pricing.
Take a look at the imagery they use as well. Are your competitors using videos or animations?
Take screenshots from these websites to create a mood board for yourself.
Then, you can create a website redesign checklist based on these elements.
3. Update Your Brand Guidelines
Your brand helps you stand out from the competition. However, an effective brand should also remain cohesive throughout your website.
Imagine clicking from one page to another, only to find a completely different design. A website that lacks cohesion can confuse visitors. They might even think they landed on a different website.
Establishing branding guidelines can help you create cohesion throughout your website. Branding can link your site and other marketing materials together as well.
When updating your brand guidelines, consider your:
- Logo
- Color scheme
- Personality
- Tone and voice
- Illustrations
- Fonts
Do any of these elements feel outdated? If so, it’s time for an upgrade! Updating your brand elements will help your business look fresh and relevant.
Then, consider how you’ll implement your brand throughout your website. For example, you’ll want a color for buttons that pops on the page.
4. Establish a Timeline
Next, establish a realistic timeline. Depending on how many pages you have on your site, you might need two to five months.
Hiring a web design company to streamline the process can help you meet your deadline. Otherwise, you might sacrifice quality for speed.
5. Set Goals
What goals do you want to accomplish by redesigning your website? Set benchmarks to measure your success, such as a 10% increase in website traffic after a month. Keep your goals specific yet realistic.
Establishing these goals before you determine how to redesign a website will help you strategize.
6. Understand Your Customers
Your customers are the ones using your customers. In order to properly redesign your website, you need to understand their needs.
What information are they looking for right off the bat? For example, you might want to create a banner at the top of the page with a button for easy contact.
Improve your page load speed, navigation, and other elements to streamline the user journey.
Otherwise, people who have a difficult time using your website could leave before making a purchase.
7. Consider Content
During the website redesign process, you also want to consider your content. Designing with content in mind can help you focus on your customers.
Then, you can tailor the website layout to highlight the content in the best way possible.
For example, consider adding pull quotes or breaking large chunks of text into sections. Designing for readability will help keep people on the page.
8. Design it Right
38% of website visitors will stop using your site if it’s unattractive. As you design your website, consider improvements that will draw the eyes to your content. Don’t forget to double-check your brand guidelines.
Make improvements to the layout, use of colors, and imagery, and flow on the page.
Adding hierarchy to your content to guide people throughout the page.
Don’t forget to make sure your site is designed for mobile devices as well. After all, Google uses mobile-first indexing to determine rankings.
If you’re unsure about your changes, use A/B testing. As you gain user data, keep making changes. Then, you can optimize your site so it gets better every time!
How to Redesign a Website: Your 8 Steps for Success
Set yourself up for success! With these eight tips, you can learn how to redesign a website with user experience in mind. As a result, your website will encourage users to contact you, visit your store, or complete a purchase.
With a good-looking, well-working site, you can boost your business and get ahead of the competition.
Ready to get started? Explore the Web Design section of the blog for more helpful tips!
