Building a Website Redesign Strategy
Building a website redesign strategy is a crucial step to ensure that your new website meets your goals, reflects your brand, and satisfies your customers. A website redesign can be a large and complex project, but with a clear plan and a user-centric approach, you can achieve a successful outcome.
In this article, we will show you how to build a website redesign strategy in seven steps. We will cover the following topics:
- How to analyze your current website performance and identify areas for improvement
- How to set SMART goals for your website redesign and align them with your business objectives
- How to define your brand identity and messaging and communicate them effectively on your website
- How to conduct a competitive analysis and learn from best practices in your industry
- How to research your target audience and understand their needs, preferences, and behaviors
- How to structure your website and create a sitemap that enhances user experience and navigation
- How to perform regular audits and tests to measure the results of your website redesign and optimize it further
By following these steps, you will be able to create a website redesign strategy that delivers value to your business and your customers.
1. Analyze your current website performance
The first step in building a website redesign strategy is to evaluate your current website and determine how well it is performing.
You need to collect and analyze data from various sources, such as:
- Website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, that provide insights into your website traffic, bounce rate, conversion rate, page views, time on site, etc.
- User feedback tools, such as surveys, polls, reviews, testimonials, etc., that capture the opinions and satisfaction of your website visitors.
- User behavior tools, such as heatmaps, session recordings, scroll maps, etc., that reveal how users interact with your website elements and content.
- User testing tools, such as usability tests, A/B tests, etc., that measure the effectiveness and usability of your website design and functionality.
By analyzing these data sources, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current website and pinpoint the areas that need improvement.
For example, you might find out that:
- Your website has a high bounce rate or low conversion rate, indicating that it is not engaging or persuasive enough for your visitors.
- Your website has outdated or irrelevant content, indicating that it is not providing value or meeting the expectations of your visitors.
- Your website has a slow loading speed or technical errors, indicating that it is not optimized for performance or reliability.
- Your website has a poor layout or navigation, indicating that it is not user-friendly or intuitive.
- Your website has an inconsistent or unappealing design, indicating that it is not reflecting your brand identity or personality.
By identifying these issues, you can prioritize the changes that need to be made in your website redesign project and set realistic and measurable goals for improvement.
2. Set SMART goals for your website redesign
The second step in building a website redesign strategy is to set SMART goals for your project. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. SMART goals help you define what you want to achieve with your website redesign and how you will measure its success.
To set SMART goals for your website redesign, you need to align them with your business objectives and customer needs. For example, if your business objective is to increase sales and revenue, you might set a SMART goal like this:
We want to increase our online sales by 20% in the next six months by improving our product pages, adding more testimonials and reviews, and optimizing our checkout process.
To make sure your SMART goals are realistic and achievable, you need to base them on the data you collected in the previous step.
For example, if your current online sales are $10,000 per month, increasing them by 20% in six months means reaching $12,000 per month. You can then calculate how many more visitors, leads, and customers you need to generate to reach that goal.
By setting SMART goals for your website redesign, you can create a clear vision and direction for your project and track its progress and results.
3. Define your brand identity and messaging
The third step in building a website redesign strategy is to define your brand identity and messaging and communicate them effectively on your website. Your brand identity is the personality and image of your business that distinguishes you from your competitors and resonates with your customers. Your brand messaging is the way you convey your brand identity through words, tone, and voice.
To define your brand identity and messaging, you need to answer questions such as:
- What is your mission, vision, and values as a business?
- What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
- What are the pain points and desires of your target audience?
- What are the unique selling propositions and differentiators of your business?
- What are the emotions and associations you want to evoke in your customers?
- What are the words, phrases, and expressions you want to use or avoid on your website?
By answering these questions, you can create a brand identity and messaging guide that helps you craft consistent and compelling content for your website. Your content should reflect your brand personality, values, and voice, as well as address the needs and expectations of your customers.
4. Conduct a competitive analysis
The fourth step in building a website redesign strategy is to conduct a competitive analysis and learn from best practices in your industry. A competitive analysis is the process of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ websites and identifying opportunities for improvement and differentiation.
To conduct a competitive analysis, you need to select a few competitors that are similar to your business in terms of size, target market, products or services, etc. You can use tools such as SimilarWeb or Alexa to find out who they are and how they rank in terms of traffic, keywords, backlinks, etc.
Then, you need to analyze their websites based on criteria such as:
- Design: How does their website look? Is it appealing, consistent, and professional? Does it match their brand identity?
- Content: What kind of content do they have on their website? Is it relevant, valuable, and engaging? Does it address their customers’ pain points and desires?
- User experience: How easy is it to navigate their website? Is it responsive, fast, and secure? Does it have clear calls-to-action and conversion paths?
- SEO: How well do they optimize their website for search engines? What keywords do they rank for? How do they use meta tags, headings, images, etc.?
- Social proof: How do they showcase their credibility and trustworthiness? Do they have testimonials, reviews, ratings, awards, etc.?
By analyzing these criteria, you can identify the best practices and trends in your industry and see what works well for your competitors. You can also spot the gaps and weaknesses in their websites and find ways to stand out from them.
5. Research your target audience
The fifth step in building a website redesign strategy is to research your target audience and understand their needs, preferences, and behaviors. Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services and who you want to attract and convert on your website.
To research your target audience, you need to collect and analyze data from various sources, such as:
- Customer data: This includes demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral data about your existing customers, such as their age, gender, location, interests, values, motivations, goals, challenges, etc.
- Customer feedback: This includes qualitative data from surveys, interviews, reviews, testimonials, etc., that capture the opinions and satisfaction of your customers.
- Customer behavior: This includes quantitative data from website analytics, user behavior tools, user testing tools, etc., that reveal how your customers interact with your website and what influences their decisions.
- Customer personas: This includes fictional profiles of your ideal customers based on the data you collected. Customer personas help you segment your target audience and create personalized content and experiences for them.
By researching your target audience, you can gain a deeper understanding of who they are, what they want, and how they behave. You can then use this information to create a website that appeals to them, solves their problems, and meets their expectations.
6. Structure your website
The sixth step in building a website redesign strategy is to structure your website and create a sitemap that enhances user experience and navigation. A sitemap is a visual representation of the hierarchy and organization of your website pages. It shows how the pages are linked and grouped together and how users can access them.
To structure your website and create a sitemap, you need to follow these steps:
- Audit your existing website pages and content. Review your current website pages and content and decide which ones to keep, update, remove, or add. You can use tools such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl your website and generate a list of pages and their attributes.
- Define your website goals and user journeys. Based on your SMART goals and customer personas, define what actions you want users to take on your website and what steps they need to follow to complete them. For example, if you want users to sign up for a free trial of your product, you need to map out the pages they will visit from landing on your homepage to filling out the sign-up form.
- Create a logical and intuitive page hierarchy. Based on your website goals and user journeys, organize your pages into categories and subcategories that make sense for your users and your business. For example, you might have main categories such as Home, About Us, Services, Blog, and Contact Us, and subcategories such as Service 1, Service 2, Service 3, etc.
- Design a clear and consistent navigation. Based on your page hierarchy, design a navigation system that allows users to easily find and access the pages they need. You can use tools such as Balsamiq or Mockplus to create wireframes and prototypes of your navigation. Your navigation should include elements such as:
- A main menu that displays the main categories of your website
- A footer menu that displays additional links to important pages or resources
- A search bar that enables users to search for specific content or keywords
- A breadcrumb trail that shows users their current location and path on your website
- Internal links that connect related pages and content on your website
- Test and optimize your website structure and navigation. Before launching your website redesign, you need to test and optimize your website structure and navigation to ensure they provide a positive user experience. You can use tools such as Treejack or Optimal Workshop to conduct card sorting and tree testing exercises with real users and get feedback on your sitemap and navigation.
By structuring your website and creating a sitemap, you can improve the usability and functionality of your website and make it easier for users to find what they are looking for.
7. Perform regular audits and tests
The seventh and final step in building a website redesign strategy is to perform regular audits and tests to measure the results of your website redesign and optimize it further.
Audits and tests help you evaluate the performance and effectiveness of your website based on various criteria, such as:
- Design: How does your website look? Is it appealing, consistent, and professional? Does it match your brand identity?
- Content: What kind of content do you have on your website? Is it relevant, valuable, and engaging? Does it address your customers’ pain points and desires?
- User experience: How easy is it to navigate your website? Is it responsive, fast, and secure? Does it have clear calls-to-action and conversion paths?
- SEO: How well do you optimize your website for search engines? What keywords do you rank for? How do you use meta tags, headings, images, etc.?
- Social proof: How do you showcase your credibility and trustworthiness? Do you have testimonials, reviews, ratings, awards, etc.?
To perform audits and tests on your website, you need to use various tools and methods, such as:
- Website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, that provide insights into your website traffic, bounce rate, conversion rate, page views, time on site, etc.
- User feedback tools, such as surveys, polls, reviews, testimonials, etc., that capture the opinions and satisfaction of your website visitors.
- User behavior tools, such as heatmaps, session recordings, scroll maps, etc., that reveal how users interact with your website elements and content.
- User testing tools, such as usability tests, A/B tests, etc., that measure the effectiveness and usability of your website design and functionality.
- Website audit tools, such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb, that crawl your website and identify technical issues, broken links, duplicate content, etc.
- SEO audit tools, such as Moz or SEMrush, that analyze your website’s SEO performance and provide recommendations for improvement.
By performing regular audits and tests on your website, you can monitor the results of your website redesign and make data-driven decisions to optimize it further.
Conclusion
Building a website redesign strategy is a key step to ensure that your new website meets your goals, reflects your brand, and satisfies your customers. A website redesign can be a large and complex project, but with a clear plan and a user-centric approach, you can achieve a successful outcome.
In this article, we have shown you how to build a website redesign strategy in seven steps. We have covered how to:
- Analyze your current website performance and identify areas for improvement
- Set SMART goals for your website redesign and align them with your business objectives
- Define your brand identity and messaging and communicate them effectively on your website
- Conduct a competitive analysis and learn from best practices in your industry
- Research your target audience and understand their needs, preferences, and behaviors
- Structure your website and create a sitemap that enhances user experience and navigation
- Perform regular audits and tests to measure the results of your website redesign and optimize it further
We hope this article has helped you learn how to build a website redesign strategy that delivers value to your business and your customers. If you need professional help with your website redesign project, feel free to contact us. We are a team of experts who can help you create a stunning and effective website that meets your goals.
