A strong digital presence is no longer a luxury for businesses – it is essential to your ongoing growth and success. Your website forms the foundation of this digital presence. No matter how people discover your business – via social media, recommendations from others they know, internet searches, or traditional marketing channels – they will visit your website to learn more. In this way, your website acts as the hub for all other marketing efforts and is the most crucial component.
Most people form an impression of your business within 0.5 seconds of visiting your website. This impression will dictate whether they stay on your website to learn more or leave to continue their search elsewhere. In addition, 88% of individuals are less likely to return to a website after a bad experience. A poorly designed website with outdated best practices, antiquated aesthetics and poor usability will have a devastating impact on your business long term.
For this reason, it is recommended that you redesign your website every two to three years. This will ensure that your website always utilizes the most up-to-date best practices and reflects the latest web design trends. Ultimately, this is the most effective way to ensure your website always provides the best possible experience year after year.
What Is a Website Redesign?
A website redesign involves rebuilding both the frontend and backend components of your website. The fronted components refer to the aspects of your website which impact the appearance, functionality and user experience. The backend components refer to the code used to power the frontend experience and functionality. During a redesign, you’ll have the ability to completely revamp the look and feel of your website. You can also add new features that will provide a better user experience and drive more leads.
You can achieve the following benefits from your website redesign:
- More cohesive brand identity
- Improved site performance
- Better SEO results
- Improved user experience
- Stay current on the latest web design best practices and trends
- Increased leads and sales
- Better site security
- Better alignment with the current needs and goals of your business
More Cohesive Brand Identity
One of the most important functions of your website is to convey your brand messaging and identity. Having brand consistency throughout your website will help you more effectively connect with your audience and build trust.
There are several reasons why your existing website may not maintain the consistent brand messaging you need:
- Your brand messaging and identity may evolve over time, and your website may not reflect your current branding
- One-off updates made by different people over the course of several years may result in inconsistent messaging that isn’t completely aligned with your overall brand strategy
When you redesign your website, it provides an opportunity to revisit your brand messaging. As part of the redesign process, you will be able to:
- Refresh your brand strategy to ensure it aligns with your current business vision and goals
- Revamp your color scheme to ensure it aligns with your established brand colors
- Craft a more cohesive brand story, ensuring that every page on your website conveys a consistent message
- Update any imagery on the website to ensure it more closely reflects your brand and appeals to your target audience
The end result will be a website that conveys a more powerful brand to your audience. This will significantly improve your ability to grow your brand awareness, build trust and convert leads.
Improved Site Performance
An outdated CMS can cause technical issues with your website. Your website may use old, bloated code that slows down your site speed. You may have broken links which take visitors to error messages instead of live pages. The site may have outdated functionality or a poor navigation structure which doesn’t address the needs of your visitors. All of these potential issues can have a devastating impact on the performance of your website.
Redesigning your website allows you to clean up all of these problems and improve your website performance:
- You can design the new website on a modern CMS that uses the latest code
- You can identify and remove all broken links from your website
- You can revisit the functionality of your website to ensure it addresses the specific needs of your target audience
- You can revamp your navigation structure and content strategy to provide the information your audience needs in a well-organized manner that makes every page easy to find
This will improve your site performance and provide a much better user experience. By doing so, you’ll significantly improve your website’s ability to grow your business.
Better SEO Results
You can have a beautiful website with highly informative content and strong brand messaging, but if people can’t find your website, it won’t help your business grow. SEO is a crucial tool to improve your search rankings and drive website traffic. Google’s search algorithms are constantly being updated, which means that SEO best practices evolve at a rapid rate. If your current website employs SEO tactics that are several years old, you may not be generating the best possible search engine results.
When you redesign your website, you have the ability to implement the latest SEO best practices during the website design and development process. This will help improve your search rankings and increase your chances of getting noticed by your target audience.
Some ways to improve your SEO during the redesign include:
- Using a mobile friendly responsive design that formats properly on all types of devices (desktop, cell phone and tablet) to ensure an optimal user experience, regardless of the device
- Employing an effective internal linking strategy that makes it easy for users to navigate the website and shows Google which pages should be featured for specific keywords
- Identifying the most effective keywords to target and building comprehensive pages for these topics
- Creating a robust backlink profile which will help boost your website’s authority
- Using modern code that streamlines the website performance and improves load times
Improved User Experience
Redesigning your website gives you an opportunity to reevaluate the experience you provide to your audience. With thoughtful planning, your new website can more effectively provide users with exactly what they need in a way that is easy to digest.
This improved user experience can take on many forms:
- A streamlined navigation architecture which makes it easier for users to access the information they need
- An overhaul of your content to ensure it effectively conveys your brand messaging and provides your audience with the robust information they seek
- Enhanced functionality that makes it easier for visitors to take their desired actions
- A cleaner web design which draws the user’s attention to important features right away
- Faster page load times and site speed
Leverage the Latest Web Design Best Practices and Trends
Styles and trends evolve over time. This is true of just about every aspect of life – you see it happen in music, TV, home décor and fashion, just to name a few. Web design is no different. If your website utilizes old styles and trends, it may feel outdated. This can potentially hurt your ability to make a good first impression.
Similarly, web design best practices are constantly changing. An old website using outdated best practices is more likely to provide a poor user experience, and this increases the chances that your visitors will leave your website right away.
Increased Leads and Sales
Converting visitors – either into promising leads or actual sales – is the primary goal of every website. A redesign gives you the opportunity to ensure your website is optimized to move visitors through the sales funnel, converting as many leads and/or sales as possible.
These conversions can take many different forms, including:
- Schedule a consultation
- Share an email address or phone number
- Sign up for an event
- Demo a product
- Download an eBook
- Sign up for an email newsletter series
If you are trying to sell your product online, adding ecommerce functionality to your website can help you drive more sales without asking visitors to leave your website. This can significantly boost sales.
Redesigning your website lets you strategically place CTA buttons, online forms and other compelling calls to action throughout your website. By optimizing your use of these calls to action, you can significantly increase leads and sales.
Better Site Security
Cyber security threats are a major risk for all websites. An old website may not contain the most up-to-date security necessary to protect visitors from these threats. A website redesign allows you to fix any security errors on your existing website, utilize the most advanced security practices to prevent future threats, and add an SSL certificate that lets users know your site is secure.
In a worst-case scenario, your old website will have such outdated security that visitors receive warnings such as “your connection to this site is not secure.” When this occurs, many visitors may not even choose to enter your website at all. If the lack of website security makes users afraid to engage with it, you lose any chance of converting them.
Better Alignment with the Current Needs and Goals of Your Business
Your business has most likely grown and evolved over time. A website that addressed your needs five years ago may not be equipped to handle your needs today. A redesign gives you the opportunity to hit the reset and ensure your website can handle your present needs and goals, while providing the scalability to accommodate the next phase of your evolution over the next few years.
You may have a slightly different target audience today than when you built your current website. You may offer different products or services now. Your audience may have different needs and pain points due to changes in the world. Redesigning your website allows you to address these items – and more – to ensure it remains an effective tool for business growth.
Webolutions Can Help with Your Website Redesign
Your website is the foundation for all of your marketing efforts, and it’s crucial that your redesigned site sets your business up for ongoing growth and success. Working with an experienced digital marketing agency is the most effective way to ensure your new website addresses the specific needs of your business while providing the exceptional user experience your audience expects.
Webolutions has been building award winning websites for businesses in a wide range of industries since 1994. Our unique Websites Right Methodology™ is a fully integrated, strategic approach to website design and development that has been developed over 27 years and leverages the experience and knowledge acquired from building thousands of websites. This exclusive process involves:
- Clearly outlining your website goals at the start of the project
- Collaborative planning of your home page key elements to ensure they convey your unique brand story
- Creating detailed website mockups to ensure you have clear expectations of how your website will look and feel
- Clearly documenting all functional requirements to ensure the needs of your business are addressed
- Implementing third-party tools which provide enhanced website functionality
- Custom programming and development to address the specific needs of the project
- Providing tactical content leadership to help you more effectively educate your audience and communicate your story
- Implementing SEO best practices to drive better search engine rankings
- Post launch testing and ongoing analysis to ensure you’re achieving the best possible results
Our Websites Right Methodology™ creates a far better and smoother client experience. It also ensures the best possible website marketing performance, allowing your business to grow and thrive.
Contact us to schedule a free consultation. One of our expert website consultants will discuss your specific needs and goals in detail to ensure you understand what is involved in the redesign process. Webolutions provides website design and development services to businesses nationwide.