A Checklist : 10 Things You Need To Do Before Your Website Redesign
Introduction
1. Define your goals
Any company or organization that wishes to boost its online presence and accomplish its objectives must first update its website. Setting attainable goals that are in line with the organization's overarching aims and vision is crucial before starting a website overhaul.
Identifying the precise issues or difficulties that your current website is facing is the first step in identifying your goals for a website redesign. This could be due to a number of factors, including an out-of-date design, bad navigation, sluggish page loads, little traffic, low conversion rates, or any other problems that are impairing the functionality of your website.
You must develop realistic goals that address the issues once you have identified them. For instance, if your website receives little traffic, your goal can be to double it within the first six months of its existence. Similar to this, if your website has a high bounce rate, you might want to reduce it by 20% during the first three months of introduction.
2. Research your audience
User research can be conducted in a variety of ways, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and even website analytics analysis. You can utilise this study to understand user motivations and goals when they engage with your website, as well as to uncover user pain spots and frustrations.
You can then develop an experience that is suited to the requirements and preferences of your audience using the knowledge obtained through user research. Site navigation, content organisation, messaging, graphic design, and other elements are included in this. You can boost customer satisfaction, boost conversions, and enhance engagement by creating an experience that speaks to your audience.
It is crucial to remember that user research should be a continuous process rather than a one-time event. In order to make sure that your website continues to satisfy the demands of your audience, it is crucial to stay up to date with changes in user behaviour and preferences.
3. Research the competition
Competition analysis is a crucial step in the process of redesigning a website. You may learn a lot about what is and isn't working in your sector by looking at the websites of your competitors. You may use this information to position your website to stand out from the competition and make better educated design decisions.
While examining the websites of your rivals, there are several things to keep an eye out for. Think about their layout and design first. Look at how they produce a visual experience by combining colour, text, and pictures. Consider how you may incorporate any distinctive design elements or features that they employ into your own website.
After that, think about their content strategy. Examine the content they are producing, such as blog posts, videos, or podcasts, and take into account how conversions are being sparked by and users are being engaged by it. Look at their messaging's tone and voice, and think about how you can develop a comparable tone that appeals to your own audience.
Then, think about how they use it. Examine the layout, navigation, and overall usability of their website. Consider how you may build a more streamlined and intuitive user experience by keeping an eye out for any pain points or frustrations that consumers may have.
4. Understand what makes your site unique
The process of redesigning your website must start with an understanding of what makes it special. It's critical to understand what makes your website stand out from the competition and how to make the most of those distinctive qualities.
Start by thinking about the value proposition of your website. What do you provide that nobody else does? What makes your website the first place your target market visits? Think about the goods or services you give, the advantages you offer, and the issues you help your customers with. This will assist you in identifying the distinctive qualities and traits that distinguish your website.
You can utilise this knowledge to inform your design choices once you've determined what makes your website distinctive. For instance, you might want to prominently promote your unique selling propositions on your homepage or develop a unique feature that makes you stand out from the competitors. You can build a website that stands out from the competition and appeals to your target audience by concentrating on these distinctive traits.
5. Define your visual style
One of the most important steps in the website redesign process is defining your visual style. Making a design style guide is necessary to ensure that your website has a unified appearance and feel and to guide all of your design decisions.
Start by researching current web design trends and selecting those that complement the personality and messaging of your brand. Think of elements like font, colour scheme, iconography, and imagery. You want to develop a visual aesthetic that appeals to your target market and reflects the personality of your business.
Create a design style guide that specifies how each visual component should be used once you've determined the visual components that will make up the design style of your website. This manual will act as a point of reference for all of your design choices and guarantee that your website has a unified and consistent aesthetic.
6. Decide on your Content
When updating your website, there are numerous areas of content to take into account. Make sure you decide on your website layout, the kind and volume of information you'll use, and how you'll SEO-optimize that content. Also, think about the platforms and technologies you'll employ moving forward, as well as how you'll manage content. You'll have a better idea of the content you need to produce, how it should be structured and presented, and how to optimise it for search engines before beginning your website redesign. This will speed up the design process and guarantee that the material on your website is interesting, pertinent, and SEO-optimized.
7. Map out your Navigation
It's essential to make your navigation system simple to use and understand while developing it. Visitors should be able to easily navigate your website and find the information they're seeking for in a timely manner. Maintaining consistency in your navigation across the entire website is also crucial. Make sure that each navigational item is clearly and concisely labelled, and that it is arranged in a logical sequence.
Think of creative methods to make your navigation more appealing to increase user engagement. Sticky navigation, mega-menus, and dropdown menus are all effective ways to keep visitors on your website and entice them to explore more of its contents. Also, you may utilise calls to action (CTAs) in your navigation to nudge users into carrying out particular tasks, like subscribing to a subscription or completing a purchase.
8. Create a Sitemap
It's crucial to build a sitemap before you begin the design process. This entails creating an outline of every page and area of your website that will be included in the redesign. This procedure aids in finding any content gaps and guarantees that all crucial pages are included in the makeover.
The hierarchy of your material should be taken into account while designing your sitemap. Create subpages and sections that are linked to your homepage after which. To establish a logical flow and make it simple for users to traverse your website, group comparable pages together.
You can use your sitemap as a roadmap for the development and design phases after you've developed it. The sitemap will ensure that all pages are included in the development process and will aid developers in understanding the structure of your website. The sitemap can be used by designers to develop wireframes and design concepts that complement the organisation of your website.
9. Wireframe your Pages
Create a rough sketch of the overall design and structure of each page before beginning to wireframe it. Either by hand or with specialised wireframing software, this can be accomplished. Pay close attention to where important components like headers, footers, navigation menus, and content areas are placed. Think about how these components will appear on various screen sizes and devices.
Once you've created a basic wireframe, it's crucial to test prototypes with users. Making a rudimentary, interactive prototype of your wireframe enables people to browse the website as they would in the finished product. This can help you discover any usability problems or potential areas for improvement while also providing you with insightful information about how users interact with your website.
Pay attention to how visitors move through your website, where they get stuck, and where they have trouble accessing content while conducting user testing. Make changes to your wireframes and improve your design using this feedback.
10. Prepare for Launch
Launching your website is the next step after designing and developing it. Check that everything on the website is functioning properly before attempting to accomplish it. Make sure to conduct an SEO audit to optimise your pages, and have a strategy in place for testing and evaluating the redesign's effectiveness.
Conclusion:
Make sure you have a thorough plan in place before you begin because redesigning a website may be a challenging undertaking. Make sure you cover all the bases and have a successful launch by using this checklist. If you adhere to this checklist, your website makeover will be a positive and gratifying experience.
