5 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE REDESIGN

Transcription

1 5 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE REDESIGN

2 INTRO TOP REASONS TO REDESIGN YOUR WEBSITE Redesigning your website? Don t know where to start? Not to worry, we ve got you covered. By the 3me you finish reading this 5 step guide, you ll have a solid plan to get you on your way to a brand new site. Get ready to a?ract, engage, nurture and convert your visitors! 1. It looks outdated. There are many good reasons for a site redesign. Whether sprucing up the look and feel of your site or improving func3onality, most sites could use a refresh every now and then. Commerce is shifing more and more online each year. In fact, now 81% of consumers will research a company website before making a purchase (RetailingToday). Chances are they re even looking up your compe3tors. Your website gives visitors a strong first impression of your company. You want to make sure your site provides the assurance that your company is healthy, forward-thinking and ready for new customers. It is integral to the ongoing success of your organiza3on. Most businesses update their sites every 3-7 years. 2. It needs updanng. It does not reflect your latest business and markeang strategy. 3. It is not responsive. It does not provide a seamless experience across all devices. 4. It is hard to navigate. It provides a poor user experience. 5. It can t be updated. It is hard to add new content or opamize for SEO. 6. It doesn t work. Features on the site do not funcaon properly. AnNcipaNng a brand new website that can also funcnon as your 24/7 lead generanon machine makes the redesign an enjoyable and excinng 81% of consumers will research a company website before making a purchase. (Retailing Today) experience. 2

3 5 STEPS GOALS & OBJECTIVES PLAN FOR USER EXPERIENCE ESTABLISH CONTENT HIERARCHY SET FOUNDATION FOR LONG-TERM GROWTH POST LAUNCH STRATEGY Learn how you can manage your en3re digital experience without limita3ons. 3

4 STEP 1 GOALS & OBJECTIVES FIRST ASK: OUTLINING YOUR GOALS How can your new website support your overall markenng efforts? Establish your goals as the first step of your website redesign. These goals will This is a commonly overlooked aspect of a redesign. Did you know your determine how the project will progress. If you have mul3ple goals, put them in priority website can trigger success in brand awareness, social media marke=ng, marke=ng, lead genera=on and sales? Ask yourself what are the goals for the redesign and how your business will benefit in the long run. order. Tie each goal to a specific metric so you can measure success. If your goal is to generate more leads by increasing traffic to your site, you could say you want to increase traffic by 30% over the next four months. Once you ve got your goals set, communicate them to all people involved in your redesign. You can even create a document to update and share as the project moves forward. GOAL & OBJECTIVE EXAMPLES Improve Site FuncQonality on Mobile Increase New Leads / Form missions Increase Sales Generated Increase Number of Site Visitors Improve Bounce Rate Improve Search Engine OpQmizaQon Improve Brand Awareness! PRO TIP: Between outlining goals and diving into design, ask yourself a bigger ques3on. Do you have the right Content Management System (CMS) powering your website? A Content Management System (CMS) is a pla4orm that allows non-technical users to manage content, trigger automated marke>ng func>ons and access analy>cal data on a single back-end interface. The best part about a good CMS system is that it helps users op>mize the way their business interacts with customers in an increasingly online world; leveraging the most important digital channel their website - to do so. 4

5 STEP 2 PLAN FOR USER EXPERIENCE USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN User Experience Design (UXD) is the process of enhancing user sansfacnon by improving the usability, accessibility or pleasure provided in interacnng with your website. In this case, the user is your site visitor who is also your prospec3ve or current customer. Your new website should communicate products and services upfront while guiding visitors to complete one or two main objec=ves, also known as calls-to-ac=on. Be sure to review wireframes with your design team to see how calls-to-ac3on will nurture and convert visitors and how your website will render on various devices (desktop, tablet, phone). Forrester Research says that 75% of web visitors who can t find the informanon they need will seek answers from more costly support channels such as phone, , or chat. The other 25% of web visitors respond in the following way: 16% find other solunons and the remaining 9% end up going to your compennon (yikes!). PRO TIP: Consumers may behave differently on each device so design accordingly. Someone visi>ng your site on a mobile device may look for different informa>on than someone viewing from a desktop. More than 17% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices a number that will only increase going forward (Sta>sta). 17 % of all website traffic comes from mobile devices a number that is sure to increase. 5

6 STEP 3 ESTABLISH CONTENT HIERARCHY INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE InformaNon Architecture (IA) is the organizanonal structure and labeling of pages and folders on your website. The goal Your homepage should give a high-level overview of your company and define your UVP. Your naviga3on and the pages linked to your homepage are then sub-categories and so on. If is to help users find informa3on and complete tasks efficiently. To do this, start by thinking about the priori3es of your site and what your company sells cars, your homepage would explain why they should buy a car from you over visitors will need to see first. Outline how the informa3on fits together and relates to the overall purpose of the site. the compe33on. Then the pages linked to your homepage will describe the models of cars that you sell and so on. Homepage It helps to iden3fy your Unique Value ProposiNon (UVP). A UVP defines why your products or services are different from or ABC Cars beker than the compennon. You ll need to know your UVP later on to develop your search engine op3miza3on strategy (SEO). Search Engine OpNmizaNon is the process of affec3ng the visibility of a website or web page in a search engine s unpaid results ofen referred to as natural, organic, earned or unpaid results. Category Category Category Company Blog Posts Details Category 1 Category 2 6

7 STEP 4 SET FOUNDATION FOR LONG-TERM GROWTH LAYOUT VERSATILITY & ADAPTABILITY Many studies find that companies redesign their website every 2-3 years. Yet there s a difference between a full website overhaul and necessary tweaks to keep things func3onal, fresh and updated. A WYSIWYG editor stands for what-you-see-is-what-you-get. This type of editor enables nontechnical users to edit and add new content without having to code or outsource to a thirdparty. Being able to make quick updates to your site, as well as add new pages and forms, means that you can present relevant informa3on and support your sales and marke3ng strategies. A full website overhaul is 3me-consuming and may include implemen3ng an en3rely new Content Management System. Make sure you do it right the first 3me around to extend the life3me of your website. So, how can you make sure your website will stand the test of =me? Build in an element of adaptability to your site. There are two different ways to think about site adaptability. The first type is what we call being responsive or mobile-op3mized. The second way a site can be adaptable is by being built on a WYSIWYG editor. A responsive site recognizes the screen size of the device being used and automa3cally adapts the layout accordingly. Most sites are built this way and it is a must-have for long-term strategy. 7

8 STEP 5 CREATE A POST LAUNCH STRATEGY ENSURE THE SUCCESS OF YOUR NEW SITE POST LAUNCH STRATEGY CongratulaNons! If you re at this step, you ve recently launched your new website. You ve worked so hard to refresh 1. Review analy3cs and set benchmarks to monitor performance. your online presence but you can t just set it and forget it. Make sure your site con3nues to be successful by following these steps: 2. Op3mize for organic keyword performance. 3. Align website content with business goals. 4. Create an editorial calendar and publish new content. 5. Check site health regularly. Remember those goals you set in Step 1? Whether you wanted to increase visitors or form submissions, you can track these analyncs on your live site! You can use Google Analy3cs to track data points that can tell you all about the health of your site and the new visitors you a?ract to it. A CMS and marke3ng system like Bridgeline Unbound takes this one step further to track data and deploy automated marke3ng campaigns to nurture your leads all day, every day. 8

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