When Does Your Company Need A Website Redesign Or Revamp?

 

8 Signs You Might Need A Website Revamp:

While every business is unique, certain signs may indicate it’s time to revamp your existing website. Recognizing these signs keeps you ahead of competitors and ensures your website converts visitors.

1. Outdated Design: design trends are constantly changing. Website designs popular 5 or 10 years ago date your existing website. Your design elements influence what your website visitors think of your brand. 
2. Poor user experience: A user-friendly site helps your target audience find what they are looking for. However, user experience covers a lot more than just design elements. 
3. Long Loading times: According to one statistic, 40% of visitors leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. The bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who leave your site after viewing a single page. 
4. Not mobile-friendly: According to Plus, Statista, over 50% of all web traffic is from mobile devices. That figure is most likely to increase. A mobile-friendly site is vital. 
5. Low conversion rates happen when few website visitors do a desired action, called the conversion rate. If you run an e-commerce site, then you want visitors to buy. If a large percentage of website visitors are abandoning their carts then that is a low conversion rate. 
6. Rebrand: site redesigns and rebrands often go hand and hand. The design team should ensure the new design elements, content, and user experience reflects the new and improved branding. 
7. Launching new products or services: A site redesign can support the market strategy of new products and services. Effectively communicating your new offerings can further your business goals. 
8. Inadequate SEO performance: Search engine optimization is constantly changing. Your existing website might have already been search engine optimized. However, changes to search engines can cause you to fall in the rankings. 

 

Should I Hire A Website Redesign Company Or Do It Myself?

Thinking about giving your website a fresh look? Redesigning your website can feel overwhelming, especially when deciding whether to hire a professional website redesign company or go the DIY route. As more and more consumers turn to the internet, having an engaging, user-friendly website is essential for your business’s success.

While you might feel confident in your technical skills and tempted to tackle the redesign yourself, there are several important factors to consider. A professional website redesign company offers expertise, experience, and a fresh perspective that can significantly enhance your site.

They can specialize in conversion optimization, ensuring your site turns visitors into customers. They also focus on improving the customer experience, providing responsive design, and seamless functionality that aligns perfectly with your business goals.

Opting to do it yourself gives you complete control over the process and can save you some money upfront. However, it's important to remember the difficulty of learning and potential challenges. 

Are you prepared to face unexpected problems and ensure that your website meets current industry standards? In this article, we'll explore the pros and cons of both hiring a professional and doing it yourself, so you can make the best decision for your business. 

 

6 Phases Of The Website Redesign Process:

Here is an overview of our website redesign services broken down into phases. Understanding the process will help you collaborate with web designers and fulfill your business goals. 

1) Research:

• Determine specific, measurable business goals. How else will you know if your website redesign project is a success?
• Understand your target audience. After all, it’s about them. What motivates them? What pain points can you solve? You’ll use your target audience research to define buyer personas. 
• Take stock of your existing website. What converts visitors? What causes them to bounce? 

2) Content Creation:

• Once you understand your target audience, you can delve into their search intent. This will ensure your site redesign is search engine optimized. 
• Ensure that your content aligns with your market strategy. 
• If you have a content strategy, support it with a content management system. 

3) Design Phase:

• The design phase is where your design team lay out design elements in a wireframe. A wireframe is essentially when web designers plan out the functionality of each page and how they flow together. 

4) Development and Testing:

• Once your design team completes your content and website design, they can put them together. They fill out the wireframe to create a demo site. 
• Many website redesign projects fail because they don't test demo sites. Testing is essential to the website redesign process. It ensures your new site satisfies the user experience. 

5) Launch!

6) Post-launch:

• Once your new site is launched you should compare its key performance indicators (KPIs) against the old scores. That way you can measure how successfully it fulfills your business goals. 
• A website redesign is never truly done. Websites need continuous maintenance, occasional updates, and potentially a steady stream of content. 

 

How To Choose The Right Website Redesign Agency

Choosing your design team is up to you. However, here are some things to consider when hiring an agency. 

1. Portfolio and experience: Review the agency's portfolio to ensure that the agency understands your specific needs and challenges.
2. Client reviews and references: Read and ask for references to gauge the agency's reputation and client satisfaction.
3. Collaboration and communication: Effective collaboration and communication are essential for a successful website redesign. Good web designers will be easy to work with and keep you informed throughout the process.
4. Budget and timeline: Consider your budget and timeline when choosing a website design agency. While cost is an important factor, it should not be the sole determining factor in your decision.

 

Website Redesign Benefits

Your website is often the first point of contact for many potential customers. Your website needs to make a good first impression. One report states that a business's website influences the feelings of 50% of website visitors. 

Another survey revealed that 81% of website visitors think less of a brand if the website isn't updated. Your website design directly influences your brand perception, trust, and relevance. 

However, taking on a website redesign project can also drive your business goals. Taking the time to collaborate with a design team and think through the website redesign process will serve you in the long-run. A smart site redesign can increase your conversion rate and support your market strategy.

Tracking The Success Of Your Website Redesign.

A website redesign project, or any business project, should start with SMART Goals. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-based goals. 

Most businesses want their website to 1) increase traffic and/or 2) increase revenue. To do so, you should focus on a select few KPIs.

For traffic:

1. Reduce bounce rate
2. Improve domain authority
3. Increase time on site
4. Number of visits, visitors, and unique visitors.

To increase revenue:

1. Increase conversion rate
2. Increase new leads 
3. Increase total sales generated

 

Identifying The Target Audience For Your Website Revamp. 

Research from Google revealed four main intentions behind website traffic. 

1. “I want to know.” These website visitors are just beginning their buyer’s journey.
2. “I want to go.” These website visitors want to get in touch with you. They might be trying to find a nearby location or are trying to schedule a consultation. 
3. “I want to do.” We often look up “how-to’s” on our smartphones to help with a task. Think how-to guides (like this one), courses, and competitions. 
4. “I want to buy.” They have completed their buyer’s journey. Help them by ensuring your website is user-friendly, quick, and clear. 

Depending on your business, you might need to satisfy some or all these intentions. For example, an e-commerce site specializing in novelty handbags may not have a physical location. It only needs to satisfy “I want to know” and “I want to buy” intentions. B2B services will most likely have to satisfy all four to convert visitors. 

Creating customer personas is another way to understand your target audience. Buyer or user personas are fictional characters. They represent your target audience’s demographics, behaviors, motivations, goals, and pain points. 

Focusing on your target audience’s needs creates a user friendly and intuitive design. Well-documented personas help your design team craft compelling content and design elements.

 

Understanding Your Website Redesign With Google Analytics

During website redesign projects, it can be tempting to clean the slate and start from scratch. However, doing so will waste a lot of good work and resources. Instead use services like Google Analytics to better understand your website’s performance. 

Google Analytics and Google Search Console are tools to evaluate your website’s traffic and performance. Another great tool is heat maps. 

Heat maps use a color-coded system to represent user engagement. They help visualize where users click, scroll, and focus their attention. Heat maps identify which design elements contribute to your business goals. For example, users might focus on a video at the top and never scroll down to the submission forum below. 

 

Here Are Some Examples Of Hard Data To Evaluate Your Website Design With: 

1. Which pages receive the highest traffic? 
2. Which pages cause your audience to drop off? 
3. Which design elements or pages convert the most visitors?
4. Where is the lowest conversion rate?
5. Which products or pages have the highest impressions?

 

What Is A Content Management System?

Now that you evaluated your website and established your target audience, let’s talk about content management systems. 

A site redesign will inevitably impact your SEO. If your existing website is already search engine optimized, then you want to preserve that domain authority. That is why we took stock of what was working. 

For example, if you remove a page that has a high number of inbound links, you will lose SEO credit. You can preserve your domain authority by creating a 301 redirect map. 

A site redesign changes your site’s structure and URLs. A 301 redirect map permanently redirects from one URL to another. It essentially tells search engines where content was moved, preserving your SEO. Website visitors who used an old URL will automatically access the new URL. 

That is only one aspect of search engine optimization. SEO is constantly changing and it is important to keep up with search engine adjustments. For example, Google prioritizes mobile friendly, responsive sites. Over 50% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. 

Responsive design adapts your website to different screen sizes and devices. The goal is for all website visitors to enjoy an optimal viewing experience. 

While it is important to incorporate SEO keywords into your static content. However, steadily adding content can further your market strategy. A content strategy may include blogs and newsletters. Ultimately, this kind of content can satisfy the “I want to do” and “I want to know” search intentions. 

When developing a content management system, consider editability and scalability. 

Editability is how easy it is to update your website. For example, you might want to update your About Us page to include a new team member. 

Scalability is how easily you can expand upon your website. Your website will most likely be your primary platform for your content strategy. For example, it should be easy to create blog posts.

 

What Is A Wireframe? The Foundation For Your Website Redesign. 

A wireframe is like a sketch of your website’s new structure. Think of it as the skeleton while the content, medium, and design elements are the organs. It plans the layout, navigation, and functionality of each page. 

Wireframes allow web designers to map out design elements without worrying about the fine details. No need for color, typography, or imagery at this stage. The goal is to make the flow intuitive. 

This part of the website redesign process may seem simple and unnecessary. However, wireframes save time and money in the long run. It facilitates communication and feedback from clients and all members of the design team. 

 

How UX Design Can Revamp Website Conversion Rates

Now that you have a wireframe to guide your design team, your web designers can start filling it in. User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design creates the functionality of your website. They focus on how website visitors interact with your site. 

Website design influences website performance. You want your target audience to find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible and with minimum barriers. One improvement your web designers can do is minimize loading times. 

According to one statistic, 40% of visitors leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. The ideal response time is between 1 and 2 seconds. You can improve loading times by compressing images and removing unnecessary plugins.

 

What is A/B Testing? How To Test A Website Redesign. 

Many website redesign projects fall flat because businesses skip the testing phase. Testing identifies usability issues, validates design decisions, and furthers your market strategy. 

Start testing with staff, have employees use the site to catch any obvious issues. Once the obvious flaws or out of the way, you can start A/B testing. A/B testing compares two versions of a page to see which performs better. 

The most useful kind of testing is usability testing with your target audience. Moderated remote usability testing asks an existing client to use the site while thinking aloud. They complete typical tasks and share their thoughts and reactions. 

That is only one type of testing. Some web designers host user interviews to gather qualitative data. 

Take your time with this phase and incorporate feedback. Don’t be scared to return to the design or development phase. It'll serve you in the long run. 

 

Ready To Launch? Announce Your Website Redesign!

We recommend launching your site at night to minimize traffic disruptions. Promoting your new site through outbound communications can temporarily boost your traffic. Monopolize on the new design with social media. 

 

The Post-Launch Strategy: Continuous Improvements.

Compare your new KPIs to your old site’s performance. Your changes will take some time to gain traction. Check Google Analytics or any tools you used in the research phase every few weeks. One of the benefits of hiring professional web designers is their post-launch support. 

A good web design agency may offer updates and maintenance to help you grow. A website redesign is never truly done. Partnering with an agency can help you down the road. 

 

Frequently Asked Questions:

1) What Is A Website Revamp?

A website revamp is a digital marketing strategy to improve your online presence. It involves examining your designed website to see what works and what doesn't. You or your web developers redesign either the entire website or a few web pages. The goal of a website revamp is to increase traffic, conversion rates, SEO, and/or create a better user experience.

2) How Much Does A Website Redesign Cost?

How much a website redesign cost depends on the size of your website and the ambition of the redesign. For a small business with a small website, it might range from a doit yourself project costing you just your own time or up to $20,000 spending on the site complexity and size. 

For websites under 15 pages we see an average of around $10,000 including strategy planning, goal tracking, custom design by Sr web designers, art direction, coding, testing and launch. A larger company or website and complex backend functionality might incur a cost in the tens of thousands or more. The best way to find out is to request a free custom quote just for your brand here

3) How Often Should You Receive A Website Redesign?

The frequency of website redesigns vary based on industry trends, your goals, and your online presence. Typically, we recommend you redesign your website every 2-4 years.

4) How Can Imageworks Creative Help Me With My Website Redesign

As laid out above, we understand how a good redesign can advance your business goals. As for you and your website, let’s schedule a consultation and talk.