Heard the cliche? Change is good? But, who’s to mention the bitter side of the quote? That is—change can also be unsettling. And at times, nauseating.
Not trying to be condescending. But, this quote doesn’t always work well for companies seeking to redesign their brand appearance online.
Several companies redesign their websites.
Companies might intend to redesign their websites because of the change in their mindsets, to further grow their brand, or simply might want to enhance their user experience online.
But, truth be told, redesigning a website comes with its share of benefits and risks.
So, if you are planning to redesign your website make sure to have the right reasons backing your decision.
Because redesigning a website is a HUGE decision.
9 Critical Steps For Redesigning Your Website
As your intention is to grow online, the last thing you’d want to do is to entirely redesign your old website.
Complete change of a website makes your audience feel uncertain and uncomfortable.
So, how can you constructively redesign your website without having a negative impact?
The secret to doing it is by taking baby steps. Work with the list below and welcome your audience to your new website calmingly.
Before that, a word of caution.
Which do you think is a tougher task—sketching a tattoo or fixing an old one?
Don’t trust a dabbler. Not even a practitioner. Nothing short of an expert.
Entrust a reliable CMS development services provider with the job. Don’t DIY. Don’t hire a freelancer. Don’t trust an amateur. Your website redesign is nothing short of a heart transplant.
Back to the art of redesigning a website.
Let Your Audience Know You’re Making Changes
If you want your clients to be as thrilled as you are about your website redesign, avoid keeping your clients in the dark about the website revamp.
Send out creative emails to convey to your customers about the changes in store for them.
By informing customers beforehand, they will be aware and prepared for the change.
This also gives your website an overhaul and can result in providing a fresh perspective.
The key is to communicate humbly and humanely.
Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly
When your website design prototypes are ready, solicit feedback from your target audience.
Use beta testing to demonstrate to consumers how your redesigned website will feel on the desktop and a cell phone.
If you notice that specific elements confuse or frustrate site users, you should address the issue before the launch.
Having a lively easy-to-use mobile-friendly website increases the page time on your website as the loading time of a website on mobile is lesser than on a desktop.
Having a mobile-friendly website reduces bounce rates, in turn ensuring a happy customer and a successful business.
Optimize Your Website
Resigning your website will require professional website coding.
Do not rush through this procedure and do not underestimate the skills of hiring experts to redesign your website.
The challenge of redesigning a website is to enhance, not ruin.
Redesigning your website gives you the opportunity to rework your SEO strategy and rank for keywords and alt images.
Include Working Internal Links
Internal links help your user navigate to all their interested topics or products across the website.
However, in case a few pages of your website are removed or remodeled, it impacts the internal links.
Therefore, once you’ve redesigned your website make sure your internal links are working and are adding value to your user experience.
Additionally, if any page is redirected to a new URL, you should take the time to update all links that refer to it.
Focus On The Details
One of the most effective ways to attract your audience is to focus on the little things.
Look at Starbucks or Taco Bell, for example, both of these food companies redesigned their brand image over the years. However, by making small changes over the years.
*Users love aesthetically pleasing websites*
This implies that users are responsive to agile changes.
So, have a plan in action while redesigning your content, logo, color or even if you’re introducing a new font.
Small changes over a period of time on your website can help you retain your valuable website customers.
Conduct A Website Audit
The SEO value of your website is intertwined with the individual pages as well as the overall structure.
To determine the SEO value of your site analyze your current URLs and check for high-value content, backlinks, and current ranks for each page.
Tools such as Google Search Console (GSC) can help you extract and understand data.
Setting Up 301 Redirects
Lastly, one of the most common reasons websites lose traffic during migration is because of their negligence in redirecting their visitors while redesigning.
By implementing 301 redirects to your website, you can inform the search engine crawlers that the link has been permanently moved.
By taking the above-listed preliminary actions, you can win over your audience without much of a hassle.
Sophisticated & Simple Website Designs Are Attractive
A website redesign is a sophisticated procedure that modifies a website both on the outside and on the inside.
However, sophisticated doesn’t mean complex.
For instance, look at the functional, simple design of Google. With just the search bar on the homepage, Google eliminates any sort of distractions for its user.
Similarly, plan your website redesign presentation to cater to the mass in a simple yet sophisticated manner.
After website redesigning, continue to make your efforts by tracking bounce rates, average website session of your user, uploading engaging content, and so on.
