What is a website redesign?
Your website is your first impression or interaction with potential customers of your brand. But does it feel outdated? A website redesign isn’t just about making things look attractive but it is a detailed process of revamping your site, which includes updating content, refreshing layouts and improving navigation for better conversions and site performance.
Each click and every scroll matters. Redesigns should be a strategic move, not just a cosmetic upgrade. Think of faster loading times, mobile responsiveness and easy navigation. It’s about improving conversions and giving your customers exactly what they require. Let’s explore the expert tips that ensure your next redesign is a powerful tool for the success of your website.
Questions you can ask while redesigning the website
If you are reading this blog, you may be observing whether your website requires a refresh. Let’s help you make a decision. Redesigning a website doesn’t necessarily mean starting from scratch, it involves identifying specific areas that require attention, and in some cases, creating new pages from scratch.
Once you have a good idea about the website, ask yourself the following questions to ensure that you are putting in the effort for the right reasons.
Why are you looking for a website redesign and how should it help the business?
Understanding the purpose behind the redesign. Is it helpful in improving user experience and conversions or achieving business goals?
Who is the target audience (TG), and what do you want to communicate to them?
Know your target audience and make sure communication aligns with their specific needs.
What are the core features and functionalities the website should include?
Define features & functionalities like speed or mobile-friendly.
Who are your direct/indirect competitors and are there any reference or inspiration sites with similar functionalities?
Analyze competitors to understand the areas that require improvement.
What is the project plan going to look like?
Shape a detailed chronology that includes phases like design, development and testing.
Who are the stakeholders during the entire redesigning process?
The associate team responsible for decisions includes designers, developers and marketers.
Understanding the Need for a Redesign
Eventually, the logical question arises when is the right time to redesign a website? Many factors might impact the decision, from outdated visuals, poor user expectations or declining conversion rates.
But, before starting any project related to redesign, it is essential to understand the purpose of the redesign.
Identify when a redesign is necessary:
Poor user experience:
If visitors are facing navigation issues, that’s when you should know that redesigning your website can improve usability and keep them engaged.
Outdated design or branding:
An outdated website can be a bad sign for your online presence, causing you to lose traffic, annoy users with poor navigation and mislead your brand’s identity.
Fact: 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the layout is unstructured & unappealing.
Low conversion rates:
When websites are not converting visitors into customers, a redesign can help in optimizing layouts and CTA to boost conversion.
New business goals or target audience:
A website redesign can help businesses stay competitive in their industry by incorporating the latest design trends & technologies. Businesses must adapt to new goals, products or target markets.
Refer to the importance of analyzing metrics and user feedback:
Monitoring performance metrics and collecting user feedback from potential customers is important for understanding their collective impressions of the redesigned website.
Actionable Steps on How to Start a Website Redesign
Stepping up business brings great opportunities and challenges. Your website traffic will rise which is a good indication. Having a website that has a poor UX and doesn’t convert customers into leads is a piece of bad news.
Redesigning your website is a significant assurance that requires careful consideration. To start a website redesign consider these essential steps.
Step 1. Goal Setting: Establish Clear Objectives
Goal setting gives you and the design team a clear understanding of the purpose of the redesign and what you would like it to accomplish.
Define specific goals for the redesign:
- Improved UX/UI: Prioritize user experience (UX) enhancements, factors like the seriousness of the problem and the number of users impacted, By regularly reviewing the website against these UX goals, you can maintain a high-quality user experience over time.
- Better performance (load times, SEO): Faster page loading is important for both user conversion and SEO ranking.
- Increased conversions and engagement: The success of a website redesign hooks on conversions and engagements. Whether it’s getting visitors to purchase, sign up for a newsletter or fill out a contact form
Emphasize the need for alignment with business goals:
Establish clear objectives for the redesign in alignment with your existing business strategy & goals.
Examples:
- Growth in sales by 40 %
- Increase in conversion rate by 15%
- Reduced bounce rate
- Generate a good amount of backlinks every month
Step 2. Conduct an In-Depth Website Audit
Review your goals and use audits to determine if the website meets the expectations.
Audit current website performance:
User behavior analysis is a powerful method that provides invaluable insights into how users interact with your website. The website audit is a part of the site analysis process. Here, you need to understand which pages have the most value from an SEO perspective.
- Analyze user behavior and pain points: Analyzing user actions, preferences and patterns allows businesses to make decisions that lead to improved user experience, increased conversions and customer satisfaction.
- Conduct competitive research: This helps you understand the market by identifying your main competitors, their target audience and their unique selling propositions. It allows you to position your product effectively and differentiate it from the competition.
- Tools for analytics:
Use tools like Google Analytics for tracking traffic and Hotjar for heatmaps & session recordings.
Try these tools for SEO Audits:
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
Step 3. Understanding User Behavior and Pain Points
Pain points are areas of difficulty or frustration that users experience with a product or service. They can be related to usability, customer service, pricing or any other aspect of the user experience. Understand how user feedback and personas are important for better results.
- Perform user testing and gather feedback:
Conduct user testing to observe how users interact with your product and feedback through surveys etc.
- Create user personas to guide design decisions:
User personas allow you to be in tune with your target audiences to better understand the diverse hopes and needs of the genuine people who use your website or product.
Specific examples of pain points
Usability:
- Difficulty accessing a website
- Slow loading
- Confusing navigation
- Inaccurate search results
- Difficult checkout process
Customer service:
- Lack of response to customer inquiries
- Lack of clear next steps to address user questions or problems
- Long wait times on customer service calls
- Limited or confusing information on company policies and procedures
Step 4. Designing for UX/UI Excellence
UX focuses on the overall user journey that ensures a positive experience. Here are some tips you should consider:
Focus on user experience:
- Clean, intuitive navigation: Give importance to uninterrupted experience by simplifying the user journey.
- Responsive design for all devices: Responsive webpages are essential for ensuring a seamless user experience across all devices.
Improve visual hierarchy and functionality:
Concentrate on visual elements like layout, color schemes and typography, ensuring that the interface appeals to the user’s tastes & preferences.
For Instance,
A shopping app like Amazon provides users with a seamless purchasing journey. It has
- Clear categories and search functions for different products
- Optimized for various devices
- Similar user experience on any screen
- The layout has key elements like search bars, product images and “Buy Now” buttons.
- Simple color schemes and attention grabbing typography.
Step 5. Prioritize Mobile Experience
The mobile experience prioritizes a clean user interface, making it easy for users to find what they are looking for with minimal effort.
- Emphasize mobile-first design:
Mobile-first design is a methodology that prioritizes the mobile experience from the beginning. It starts by designing and developing for the smallest screen sizes first, and then gradually enhances the experience for larger screens.
- Ensure fast loading times and touch-friendly elements:
The mobile-first design encourages developers to prioritize performance and loading times, as mobile devices typically have slower internet connections compared to desktops. Similarly, make sure that touch targets such as buttons or links are large enough for fingers to interact with comfortably.
Some more tips to make a website mobile-friendly:
- Helping your smartphone and tablet users
- The best images
- Headings and text
- Sticky elements
- Don’t forget about what users are looking for
Step 6. SEO Considerations During Redesign
In a website redesign, an SEO checklist will ensure you preserve your precious SEO rankings and traffic.
Maintaining or improving SEO:
- Keeping URLs consistent: Maintaining the same URL helps keep your site rankings and existing backlinks remain valuable. Set up 301 to redirect users to the new website.
- Optimizing for speed and mobile: A website redesign SEO process lets you take the opportunity to optimize page speed by addressing the bloat.
- Updating meta tags, and alt texts: Make sure your pages are optimized for mobile too. Update on-page elements like meta descriptions, title tags, header tags and image alt texts.
Your free website redesign SEO checklist:
- Establish the sitemap and information architecture
- Assemble on-page optimizations
- Map every 301 redirect
- Restore your previous site
- Submit XML sitemap
Step 7. Prototyping, Testing, and Iteration
They are essential for validating design concepts, testing functionality, and eliciting user feedback, which is crucial for the iterative refinement of the solution.
This is a very exciting stage, where your product is almost ready. “Almost” is an important word. Before launching the new website:
- Build wireframes and prototypes:
Begin by creating wireframes for product structure, followed by prototypes so designers create an experimental model of their proposed product.
- Test with real users for feedback
Run a usability test where real users react to the prototype.
- Iterate based on test results
By iterating, teams can better understand what is working and what is not to improve the efficiency of the overall system.
Test, test, and then test some more
- Run it by the designers, developers, and others. Let them click on all the buttons and links and try different functionalities and navigation options on all devices, screens, and browsers.
- If you need then go for A/B testing
- If an external agency develops the website, do the testing yourself, checking all the web pages and their performance.
Step 8. Launch and Post-Launch Optimization
After hours and hours of consideration, research, and trials, you can finally present the new website to the world. But first, ensure that you have tools such as Google Analytics and Search Console in place, then – test again! There may be some last-minute errors:
- Monitor website performance post-launch:
Track KPIs to evaluate how well a website is meeting its objectives.
- Track KPIs like bounce rate, user retention, and conversions:
Tracking bounce rates helps businesses assess the effectiveness of landing pages, content quality, and user experience. User retention rate helps businesses gain insights into the effectiveness of their product in retaining users and nurturing long-term engagement. When it comes to website KPIs, the conversion rate is the holy grail. It helps you show your clients exactly where you are making them money.
- Plan for ongoing updates and refinements:
This involves checking and refining the site’s underlying architecture and code. It’s important to fix any existing bugs, broken links, or errors that could set back the user experience.
Website redesign examples
Some time ago, Mailchimp’s redesign was one of the most talked-about projects. When you land on the company’s new page, you first notice the color yellow which is the most distinctive and memorable one. With an updated logo and typeface, as well as funky sketches added, the company presents itself as more quirky and less rigid. And look at the landing page, with the offer and CTAs plotted so well.
Yellow Slice Case Study
Brand Name: Denkali
Project Overview:
Denkali is a premium & customizable home furnishing brand based in Mumbai. It offers a wide range of products and raw materials including online furnishing, lighting, and home decor solutions for customers to customize their spaces the way they like. The company wanted to upgrade the design of its website for a better user experience.
Problem Statement:
Denkali wanted us to redesign their existing website for both mobile and desktop to improve the user experience and make it a premium & dependable space for their customers and prospects.
Objectives:
- Improving conversion rate on the Denkali website.
- Building trust in the Denkali quality, products, and services through its website.
- Enabling easy product discovery and interior concepts based on user requirements.
- Educating users and making them aware of configurations and design solutions first.
Process Followed:
The project was divided into three phases, UX Research, UX designing, and UI design. We identified the competitors and recognized ways to position the product.
Research:
A thorough competitive analysis was conducted to identify the gaps in the user journey. Based on the UX research, user personas were created.
UX Improvement:
Task flows & sitemaps were redesigned to gain higher usability. Based on them, wireframes were created.
UI Designing:
UI mood board and UI options were created to set the theme of the entire application. After client approval, a design system was created along with the UI screens for the web & mobile app.
Task Flow:
The following task flows were created to ensure optimum visibility of the best features so that users can find them easily.
Site Map
The Sitemap was redesigned to improve the usability of the application.
Old Design vs New UI Design
Final Words
Redesigning a website can boost conversions and sales when done correctly. Give priority to data. What do you know about your current trends in web traffic, conversion rates, bounce rates, time on page and other metrics? Apply that information to the new design. Knowing what your competitors are doing can help you redesign a more effective website that surprises and charms your audience.
Use all the advice in this blog to update your website and make a strong impression on customers with an appealing first point of contact.
For a redesign or complete overhaul of your business website, contact us at Yellow Slice and see the effect immediately.
FAQs About How to Redesign a Website:
1. How to do a website redesign?
A website redesign is a huge project regardless of your organization’s size, especially if you want to do it effectively. Deep research, proper planning and a little foresight would help make your next makeover a considerable success while keeping it less stressful.
2. How to plan a website redesign?
- Gathering information and setting clear website goals
- Map out the process with a wireframe
- Plan the web design and UX
- Build an effective content strategy
- Timely maintenance of the website
3. Things to Consider Before Redesigning a Website
- Pay close attention to the website pages receiving the highest traffic
- Consider the customer journey on your website
- Set clear goals based on website analysis
4. How do you measure the success of a website redesign?
User engagement metrics such as time spent on a website, pages per session, and bounce rate are important indicators of the success of your website redesign.
5. Will you go in line with web design trends?
Nowadays, people look out for what’s trending, By the time you redesign your website, try to add web design trends that stick to your branding. Website design trends are dynamic, if you want to go hand-in-hand with them, regular maintenance is also required.
