Have you decided to redesign your website because it looks outdated now? Then you must know few things you need to do before redesigning your website.
Redesigning is not as simple as changing wallpapers in your house. It requires a whole lot of planning and expertise. First of all, you need to know the reasons you want to redesign your website. The most common reason is to provide better user experience. Another reason is to improve the performance of the site, enhance SEO strategies, marketing and sales. A poor website design can hurt all these prospects. If the traffic on your website is decreasing and the design also look outdated then you have to redesign your website. So, let’s see what are the things you need before redesigning your website.
Things you require before redesigning your website
Getting the basics in place is the most important thing to do. If you are doing the pre-prep then you are already halfway through the redesigning process. So, make sure the following points are ticked in your checklist before you attempt to redesign your website.
✤ Evaluate current website
Evaluate your current website design because then only you would be able to figure out what changes needs to be done on your website design. What needs change in your website? What are the possible solutions? And What impact those changes will have on the new site. Find out answers to these questions. Make a checklist in which you write all the things that you like as well as the things you don’t like. Think about all the things on your website that has supported or hurt your business and what changes will be helpful and supportive for your business goals.
✤ Look into the competitors
Definitely you want your website to be authentic and unique and not a copycat of other website. But it is necessary to see what your competitors are into; you should have an idea about the level of competition. Going through their websites will give you an idea about what is good for business and what should be avoided. You will get new ideas that you can apply for your website redesign.
✤ Your website represents your brand
Website is the online face of any business and it makes the first impression on your audience. So, you need to take a fresh look at your brand. Your website should include every single aspect of your brand. It should be like a mirror to your brand. Your website should leave a great impression of your brand in the mind of the user. Your brand should accurately represent what your brand is all about, what are the core values of your brands and what does it stand for. A strong brand identity is important to make that great impression of your website on the audience. Your website design should speak for your brand.
✤ Don’t forget the logo
The logo of a brand is as important as anything else. It is the symbol of your brand. A logo let the audience identify a particular brand. For instance, the leaping jaguar of Puma is strong enough to identify any shoe or cloth which belongs to Puma. So you need to have a logo that is strong enough for people to recognize your brand. It is not compulsory that your logo has to be complex or too unique, for example you must know the logo of the brand Nike, it is just a simple swoosh but it is very easy to recognize that a specific product is Nike’s. So your logo should be simple and little unique at the same time. By unique I mean different from the rest not complex.
✤ Find out your target audience
Before redesigning your website it is very important to identify your target audience. When you know the kind of people that visit your site, you can make your web design accordingly that will be very effective for your site’s performance. You can redesign your website with the right content, right appearance and right structure to draw the relevant customers. You can perform surveys to figure out what your audience wants. When you have a clear picture of your customers in front of you, you can move to the next step.
✤ Right web developer
In order to have the right website you need to hire the right web developer. Skilled and professional web developer is important to redesign your website in a perfect way. If your current web developer is not competent enough then you might as well reconsider your decision to continue with his partnership. So, it’s time to have a better web developer on board.
✤ Assess current website host
All of your hard work could go in vain if you don’t have the right website host. A website host determine number of aspects like how speedily your page loads, how much traffic your site can handle, how many times your user gets error codes when they try to access your website and whether your web security is maintained or not. If your current host is not effective enough then you should include this factor in your website redesigning strategy.
✤ Select a platform for redesign
CMS or content management system is the platform where you will build your website. Here you can alter the content of your website whether you want to add, change or delete something. A CMS can be either open source which means the source can be accessed by anyone, or it can be proprietary which means that a private company will own the code and only that company will have the right to make any change in the functionality of the CMS. The company will have the right to make any upgrade or improvement on the site.
✤ Plan out a timeline
Don’t rush things. Website development takes long time. So patiently make a plan and follow all the important steps. You can possibly make mistake if you rush things. Create a reasonable timeline after assessing everything. Sometimes few fixes will be required along the whole process, so take things slow.
Conclusion
To conclude I would say, as technology continuously evolves, business and their website also need changes. Don’t rely on old designs for too long. You need to change with change. It is very important to walk with the current trends and changes. So, you need to take care of all these aspects mentioned above before redesigning your website.
Related article: Web designing tips to draw more customers
