So, it is finally time for a time for a website redesign? Maybe your company’s website has become out of date, unbearably slow, or just isn’t converting the way it used to. In this Anvil blog the SEO team will cover the purpose of website redesigns, what factors to consider during a redesign and how a redesign can guide your search engine optimization.
Website redesigns are large scale updates to a website that include updating or changing the code, content, layout, or visual structure of the website. The goal of most redesigns is to improve the overall user experience of the website while improving the performance, SERP ranking, and conversion rate of the site. Redesigns can take place for any number of reasons including the company acquiring or being acquired by another company, a migration to a new content management system, or just an old website reaching advanced age. Whatever the reason for the redesign, there are several factors that should be considered when redesigning a website.
Before a company decides to move ahead with a redesign there are important considerations that must be addressed. These concepts can be framed as questions the organization should answer before moving ahead with a redesign:
- What are the top performing pages, pieces of content, or assets on the website currently?
- Who is currently visiting the website, and are they the ideal customer?
- What is the goal of the redesign?
All these questions play an important role in determining the research, resources, and requirements of the redesign.
Top performers
It is important to know what is performing well on the website before the redesign to determine where the most work is needed. If a particular page, piece of content, or tool on the website is performing well that asset should be carried forward, to the new website. If there is a pattern to the type of page or type of content among the top performing pages, the website development team can use the framework of these pages to build upon. Pages that are not performing well and are not converting well should be studied for the factors that make them less usable or appealing to a user. All these lessons and insights can help to plan and develop the new layout.
Who’s your user?
It is vital for any company to understand who their customers are and what they are looking for. A website will never be successful if it doesn’t serve the user. Understand the purpose of the website. Is the purpose of the website solely to inform, is it generating online sales, or is it designed to gather information from potential customer leads? What ever the answer is, the website redesign must serve that purpose…Your business will never make a sale or generate a lead if your customer can not find the path to that goal. One way a company can identify how users are interacting with a website, both before and after a redesign, is heat mapping. Heat mapping is a process designed to monitor and display how users interact with your website, where they are clicking the most, how far they scroll on your website, and more. Anvil has written about heat mapping in the past and offers heat mapping service packages. Contact Anvil Media if you would like to know more.
What’s the goal?
Odds are a website redesign will never get off the ground if your organization doesn’t know what it is working towards. How can you prove the success of your redesign if you don’t know what success looks like for your organization? The indicators of success may evolve and grow as the redesign process evolves and changes the website, but organizations should always keep the original goals in mind. If the company’s goal is to improve the speed of the website the development resources should be focused on the technical aspects of the website. Streamlining code, removing outdated plugins or features, and compressing oversized images. Indicators of success will be measured through Google’s page speed report, Google’s Core web vitals, as well as real world experience with the website. In the end you may find that by focusing on your goal of improving your page speed you have taken steps to improving total users and conversions.
So now that you have updated your website you can set it and forget for another 10 years until its time for another redesign, right? WRONG. By making the decision to redesign the website your organization has taken a huge step in improving your digital presence. Now its time to keep that momentum going with ongoing optimization. Was the website redesigned for speed? Use that improved user experience to drive users toward new and interesting content. Include the addition of a blog, FAQ, or resource section in the redesign. This will help improve website keyword relevancy and authority in your industry. If the redesign goal was improved conversions, use what was learned through heat mapping and testing to create future pages and resources that will keep the website evergreen for years to come. Take advantage of streamlined navigation and layout to direct users toward the most important service and product pages on the site, where they will complete and convert on the actions you have laid out as part of the redesign. A new website is a vehicle to higher rankings, improved conversions, and increased brand awareness, so it is important to keep it tuned up with Search Engine Optimization.
If your company is interested in redesigning your website, testing and heatmapping your website, or SEO optimization of your new website Anvil Media is here to help. We offer these services and more, so contact us today to learn how we can take your website redesign to the next level.