Julianna
A great website is like a panda bear – rare and specialized at doing several things well (eating bamboo, hanging out, you get the idea). Most websites however are more like farm animals, not especially elegant or refined but they generally get the job done.
All websites get old and ornery if you let them go long enough without critical attention. It’s important for business owners look at redesign as an incremental thing, rather a major overhaul every 2 or 3 years. Full-blown redesigns can sometimes alienate your users and leave them feeling lost. This is why most of the Web’s largest retailers – Amazon and eBay for example – don’t redesign their websites; rather, they choose to roll out major changes slowly.
We acknowledge however that many small-to-medium sized businesses – and small business websites for that matter – are DIY. Not every business has the resources or technical skill-set to be continuously improving their websites. If you fall into this camp, it’s important to keep an ongoing list non-critical bugs, fixes and improvements and try to implement through regular schedule of review, design and development. This can be scheduled quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or whatever best suits your website’s complexity and budget.
If you’ve let things go for too long or your online business requirements have changed a comprehensive rebuild is sometimes necessary. If you’re going to do a redesign of an existing website, here are some important things to address while in the planning stage.
1. Define your goals
Don’t undertake a full-blown redesign simply to keep up with your competitors. You should have quantifiable goals motivating your redesign – for example, a 10% increase in conversion rates from an improved shopping cart, or updates to your content/pages/menus because of new products or services. Clearly define and document the goals of your redesign project so you have them to refer to and guide the process.
2. Know your current website inside and out
Find out as much as possible about the current state of your website. Know your webstats, analyze your traffic data and compile feedback you have received from users. Also cavass your users about their needs via an online survey or person-to-person interviews. If your website has ecommerce or other interactive components, usability tests can help you understand where your users are having trouble and what areas are working well.
3. Research your competitors
While you don’t want to emulate your competitors, this is a golden opportunity to incorporate the best features of their web presence into your own. Study competitor websites for design ideas, communication style, dynamic features and technology. Have they incorporated a blog, or other interactive resource that brings value to their website? What type of keywords are they using? What are their key messages?
4. Manage the process and consult with experts
Even if your website is small, a redesign is an important project that needs to be actively managed with a well-defined scope, budget and the right help. Create a realistic schedule for your webcopy, design and technical changes. You wouldn’t hire an inexperienced designer or developer, so don’t cut corners on your content – consider contracting a professional writer to design the voice of your webcopy and write your important pages, even if you undertake the remainder yourself.
5. Review and update your content
A website redesign is the best time to thoroughly review, reorganize and rewrite your website content. Assess the gaps in your current content and reevaluate your information architecture – Can your customers find the information they are looking for quickly and easily? Is important information missing? Is your content structured according to your user’s needs and expectations? Now is the time to eliminate unnecessary steps, superfluous copy and redundant information.
6. Add value and get value
Do your visitors feel like they are visiting an active site? When redesigning your website try to incorporate tools and features to keep it current – for example, a blog you update several times per week where visitors can leave comments, or an area you update with advice or helpful resources. Remember that regularly updated content also helps improve your search engine ranking. Think about what you can do to keep visitors coming back for more and situate yourself as an expert in your field. An online cookware retailer has a great ‘recipe of the day’ RSS that keeps me visiting regularly; as a result, I have made impromptu purchases because of exposure to time-limited promotions.
7. Address search engine optimization
Your redesign presents a unique opportunity to optimize your website for search engines. Write your page content with keywords in mind – this will help index your pages under relevant search criteria. Also create short and descriptive urls for your pages, or consider using mod-rewrites. Mod rewrites will allow you to submit descriptive and meaningful URLS – for example to search engines while using still directing visitors to dynamically generated html typical of perl, PHP, or ASP. Also be sure to create an html version of your sitemap to help guide search engine spiders to all of your webpages.
8. Test as you redesign
Make sure your redesigned website works by having visitors and/or customers view your layouts early and test your functionally before launch. Leave a buffer for refinements.
9. Schedule regular reviews
As mentioned in the introduction, establishing a schedule to review and address design updates and non-critical bugs, fixes and improvements will save you money in the long run by keeping your website well tuned.