If you want your website to be the best salesperson, you need to revamp it, no matter what. This extensive guide talks about the website redesign process and lists some “tried and tested” website redesign tips to help you take your web design game to a whole new level.
Today’s generation judges a website in just the blink of an eye. You don’t believe it? Here’s what a study reveals — it just takes 0.05 seconds for visitors to form an opinion about your website. Yes, you read that right!
In fact, 94% of first impressions are design-related. Besides, web design alone forms 75% of the judgment of a company’s credibility.
So if you don’t have a stunning, eye-grabbing, and persuasive website, it’s high time you should look for a website revamp because your business credibility is at stake. And, of course, you don’t want your potential customers to judge your website and move to your competitor’s site.
The website redesign can solve a lot of problems your website is currently facing. Website redesigning is not a piece of cake, so many things need to be considered before website redesigning. That’s why, for the best outcome, it’s advisable to hire a creative web design company that can turn your mundane website into a breathtaking website in no time.
We have prepared this guide to help you carry out a successful redesign. We will reveal the ideal website design process and some proven-to-work web redesign tips and tactics. But before that, let’s talk a bit about the basics of redesigning, “why and when” should you go with the website redesign.
Ready? Let’s read on!
What Is Website Redesign?
When you revamp your website, like updating content, changing the layouts, improving the navigation, and enhancing the overall aesthetics of your website for better UX, sales, and ROI, that is website redesign. The process of turning your old website into a new (improved) one is website redesign.
In other words, website redesign refers to a complete overhaul of your website, from coding content, structure to the presentation of your website. Think of it as an old hairstyle that used to look just boring on you, and then you got a new haircut to look dapper. Ah! Now you got it.
Why Redesign a Website?
To put it simply, if you want to attract more visitors to your site, lower the bounce rates, generate more leads, add functionality, improve UX, and boost revenue, you need to redesign your website accordingly.
Moreover, if you go for website redesigning, you can communicate your brand values in a better way, improve the overall website visibility for visitors, advance SEO and site performance, enhance the quality and volume of leads generated, and more.
When Do You Need a Website Redesign?
Businesses opt for website redesigning for various reasons. For instance, rebranding purposes, launching new products/services, adding more functionality to the website, optimizing for conversions, revamping for responsive/mobile-first design, improving SEO, usability, and performance.
If you think you need any of these things for your website, consider revamping the website right away. Plus, the average website lifespan is 2.5 – 3 years max. After that, your website starts becoming outdated. That’s where you will need a website redesign.
Website Redesign Process: 8 Easy (And Crucial) Steps for a Successful Website Redesign
Analyze Your Current (Old) Website
To begin with, you should start with analyzing your website before you start revamping your website design. See what’s working? what’s not? What can be improved? And so on. Use analytics to scrutinize the traffic patterns and analyze your website visitors’ behavior to identify the real problems and fix them. Accordingly, make a list of all the things from your old site that you will change while website redesigning.
Determine Your Priorities
Before you begin with your website redesign thing, identify your priorities. Determine the metrics you want to improve with your website redesign, such as collecting more email addresses, selling more of a flagship product, encouraging customers to buy deals, etc. When you know what you want from your website redesign, you tend to achieve specific results with the redesigning thing.
Understand the User Journey
Like a buyer’s journey, a user journey also maps out the different stages a user goes through on their way to purchase. Understanding what your users are looking for, what issues they want to resolve, etc., can help you set yourself up for success. In fact, you can even interview your users and ask them to share their experiences to know the loopholes in your site. Therefore, work accordingly while website redesigning.
Define Your Goals and Budget
If you have decided to go with a website redesign, you must have a reason in mind. So dive into those reasons and set some specific goals that align with your budget. A lot of money and effort goes into a website redesign, and that’s why setting realistic goals can lead you to success. It is easy to identify goals during the site audit only. At this point, you can decide your budget to have a subsequent phase.
Outline a Plan and Create Strategy
Outline a well-thought-out plan based on your needs and create a killer strategy before you start redesigning your website. For instance, if you’re looking to develop a more professional image, dive deeper and look at competitors’ websites for a better understanding. Identify your content needs and create a working content strategy, addressing the pain points and educational needs of your target audience.
Get Inspiration
Now you can start to think about the look and feel of your new site. You can look at some of your competitors’ websites and gather some inspiration. However, while gathering inspiration for your new website, make sure you save the different elements you like. The best way to do this is to put together a mood board. Think of it as a collage of images and text that visually explains the direction you want to take your designs.
Begin Redesigning
You have kept everything in check, now’s the time you finally get to your weeks of hard work come to life, and start to take shape. Your hired team gets to work and puts it all together. At this stage, you will view sitemaps, wireframes, mockups, etc., for feedback. Leverage the best web design tools for your website redesign, such as Sketch, Figma, Adobe Dreamweaver, and others.
Review and Launch
This is the final part of the website redesign process. Test the newly built website to ensure the website is highly functional, error-free, and works across all browsers and devices seamlessly. You need to make sure that your website appears flawless to users. To make that happen, review the website multiple times and meticulously. Once everything seems in place, you can sign off on the website launch.
Top 7 Website Redesign Tips (And Best Practices) for Better User Experience and Increased ROI
Ensure Stunning Visuals
Remember it takes 50 milliseconds for users to form an opinion about your website? On what basis can one judge your website in this short time? Design, of course. That’s why you need to make the visuals of your website stronger and compelling by adding some simple, minimalistic yet eye-grabbing visual elements (like images, illustrations, and videos) and entice your visitors.
Emphasize Personalization
Personalization always attracts visitors. It gives them a feeling that the website is specifically created, keeping their needs in mind. Embrace personalization by making the signups flow more intuitive and integrate tailored content that matches your brand’s voice and tone. Plus, you can use the colors, fonts, and imagery that goes well with your brand.
Use Well-Resonating Colors and Images
To make a standout website that not only attracts visitors but also converts them into loyal customers, you need to use colors and images that resonate well with your brand’s personality. Aim for using contrasting colors if you want your website redesign to pop. This makes your website appear professional in the eyes of visitors; they start noticing your site. Therefore, they instantly click with your website.
Revamp the Content
When you decide to overhaul your entire website, that means you need to revamp everything inside that old website, including content. Do not just copy and paste the old content to your new site, instead hire a copywriter that can restructure your entire website content tailored to your brand’s voice. Refresh all your content — text, visual, video, and make it valuable and relevant for your readers.
Create Visitor-Converting Landing Pages with Powerful CTAs
While redesigning your website, consider creating landing pages (with powerful CTAs) that persuade visitors to convert highly. Whether it’s about a specific offer, discounts on the products/services, lead magnet for your email list, aim for creating pages that encourage visitors to take necessary actions. Designing landing pages with a clear value proposition and great CTAs results in a significant increase in conversion.
Leverage the Power of SEO
Whether you run an old website or redesign it, SEO is crucial to make it successful. Know about search engines’ latest algorithms and industry projections to ensure that your new website is well optimized with SEO’s latest (best) practices. From the homepage to landing pages and contact pages, everything needs to be optimized so that your website will appear on the top search results whenever people search for the related terms.
Ensure Mobile-First Design
Last but not least, mobile-first web design. With mobile phones accounting for over 54% of global website traffic worldwide, it becomes crucial for businesses to have a mobile-friendly website if they want to stay competitive. Moreover, Google has also started giving preference to mobile-first indexing from September 2020. Turning your website into a mobile-first design can get you more customers and profit.
The Bottom Line
If done right, a website redesign can increase traffic, boost conversions and ultimately maximize your sales and ROI.
We hope this ultimate guide to website redesigning helped you understand website redesigning, its importance, when do you need a website redesign, ideal website redesign process, and website redesign best practices.
Now it’s time to put all the readings into action, revamp your website, and take your business to new heights.
What say?