Improving the user experience, updating your brand and fixing functional limitations caused by outdated technology are all good reasons to consider redesigning your website. Refreshing the online experience gives you a chance to reevaluate the primary function of your site and the business goals it helps you achieve. By honing in on those objectives and evaluating these four key components, you’ll be well on your way to executing a successful website redesign.
Site Visitors
Understanding your audience is the first step in influencing them to take action. In order to motivate your customers, you have to know what makes them tick. What are their challenges? What incentivizes them to make purchases? How are they viewing and interacting with your site? Once you drill down into who your consumers are, you’ll be able to deliver a personalized experience they can’t resist.
The State of Your Current Site
Assessing your current website will establish a benchmark that can be used to measure the effectiveness of the new site. It’s important to identify current pain points, limitations and shortcomings with an unbiased eye to truly create an elevated experience through the website redesign process. During this stage, it can be valuable to consult various departments who interact with your customers in unique ways, including the marketing, sales, and customer service teams.
Expectations for the New Site
You’ll want to identify the decision makers and determine who will be involved in executing the work. Knowing the internal stakeholders and understanding their expectations ahead of time will help ensure the project is completed in a timely manner. Determining who will be involved in the day-to-day work will help ensure the right people are pulled in from the beginning.
Brand Standards
Your website is only one of the many brand touchpoints consumers will engage with, both on and offline. It is important for all expressions of the brand to have a cohesive look and feel to create a seamless user experience. Your website, social media channels, email promotions and print materials should all look like they belong together. Be sure to follow any existing brand standards that include guidelines for fonts, colors, logo treatment and other stylistic elements.
Understanding these four components is the starting point for any website redesign project. If you’re thinking about evaluating and improving your site experience, then contact CQL’s team of expert digital marketers to get started.
