Before A Website Redesign
You’re business has been around for a few years, and your site has been pretty successful. Your traffic might have held steady for a while, but may really be trailing off. Your site is designed well, but it still may become out of date. You dread the thought of a website redesign. How does this happen?
Unfortunately, times change. Those image hover effects that you used to think were innovative are now horribly outdated and your competition seems to have redesigned their site about every 6 months since yours went live several years ago. It’s time to redesign.
Even though you may have the intentions of improving your web presence, you should still be careful. Even though you have good intentions, you may cause more harm than good.
1. Set Realistic Goals and Expectations
A Web site redesign project can be as big or small as you want it to be. Some times the written content might be great and just a fresh new look may be all it takes. In other instances, you may need to have custom features developed to help your business and improve your services.
The main thing to consider is that you need to stick to your main goals. Don’t get sidetracked adding unnecessary bells and whistles. Even though it’s tempting, you need to make sure that your new design handles all of the important aspects that are absolutely necessary. If your site looks great, but has no substance, you’ll be in real trouble.
Doing things in steps is certainly okay. Focus on making your most important improvements first, and get those taken care of. Then, as things progress, you can add those less important features that will only add to the quality and experience of the website. It is important to prioritize your website redesign, so that the most needed features are taken care of first. For example, you wouldn’t add new social media buttons before you would optimize your site for search engines. That would be silly.
2. Choose a Designer wisely.
Choosing a web designer is an important step in the redesign process. Choose someone that has experience redesigning websites, and that can handle adding the features that you need. You should trust your web designer, and should also trust in their expertise. Look for a web designer with testimonials on their site from satisfied customers. Look at their business pages and look for reviews of their services.
3. Don’t give in to fads and eye candy.
Just because it is the “in” thing, it doesn’t mean that it needs to go on your website. You should always operate under the idea that less is more. You should scrutinize every piece and part of your website. You should ask yourself? Do I need this? Does this add to the overall experience of my website, or does it take away from it. A website redesign isn’t an opportunity to add every little widget you can find. It’s the time to refine and optimize your site. Streamlining is a great phrase to keep in mind.
4. Remember why you’re doing it in the first place.
Don’t lose sight of your main objective. The main goal of any business’s website is to increase sales and revenue. If what you’re doing isn’t doing that, then you may want to take a step back and rethink why you are even doing this in the first place.
On the other hand, don’t be afraid of change. Change is good, especially if it comes about in the right fashion. Handling your website redesign by following these main rules will help you to stay focused and meet your objective. You will be able to handle your website redesign easily. Updating your site the right way now will keep you from having to drastically alter your site in the future.