So you’ve decided it’s time to freshen up your online look and get a website redesign? Well, you couldn’t be doing this at a better time due to recent technology changes and consumer demands. So to help you succeed online here a five website redesign must do’s that you can implement when you make the decision to redesign your website.
1. Make sure your website is mobile responsive
With more people searching the web on their phones, it’s imperative that your redesign efforts focus on being responsive on all devices. Even Google noticed this trend and changed its mobile ranking algorithm to favor sites that are responsive for mobile users and Bing has followed suit. Don’t let this one slip by because there is a huge market nowadays when it comes to mobile users and they are demanding mobile optimized sites.
2. Focus on content
You should have content on your site that is useful to your audience. Google loves relevant, fresh content, so help your rankings out for free by making sure your content answers questions that your audience would be searching for when they are looking for your services. Add regular updates and/or blogs when possible – the more you’re seen as an expert in your industry, the better you’ll rank in Google.
3. Remove unnecessary stuff
You need to make sure your website is as user friendly as possible – statistically, the more user friendly your site is, the more likely site visitors are to stay longer on your site. There may be a lot of clutter that you really don’t need to bring to your next website. Be sure you simplify your design and leave out any pages that aren’t really necessary.
4. Test your site
You’ll want to test your website from top to bottom. I can’t stress this enough. Before you re-launch check every page, link, form etc is working. It can be devastating to find out that your customers tried to email you or sign up for services but never got a response because your form wasn’t working, or they tried to make a purchase on your site only to be redirected to the wrong page. Again, it often comes down to the most user-friendly site is the winning site.
5. Check your performance stats
Once your new site is up and running, check your website stats to monitor how your traffic has been affected. Most web companies would set stats up by default but if you are unsure you can ask them to add in Google Analytics, which is a great free tool. You’ll know that if you have improved the number of unique visits, return visits etc from your old site, that things are looking good. However, if you find your numbers have dropped, you’ll need to review things to see what could be improved from a user perspective.
At the end of the day if you understand your customer and what they want from you and you design your website around this, then you can have a website that truly connects and converts your site visitors.
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