A Roadmap For a Successful Website Redesign Project Plan

Are you scrambling through the Internet collecting packets of info about things to consider while redesigning an existing website?

Or, ever wondered, what should be the steps to develop a strong website redesign strategy?

Well, this blog is what one needs to know. That is, the steps for planning a website redesign.

A User-driven Website Analysis

Creating a research-based redesign strategy before starting any web revamp plan project is crucial for it to be a success.

This analysis covers 3 important aspects of a website. Namely,

• Website performance
• User experience (UX)
• Search engine rankings

Not Traditional, INSTEAD a User-Driven Approach

Nowadays, website-based reports and statistics are more than just mere figures.

Instead, they are about,

• “DRIVERS” that bring users to the site.
  • For example, how users feel about your site.
  • Or, how users interact with different segments of the site.
• “BARRIERS” that stop or bounce users off.
  • For instance, which page elements cause users to leave a page?
• “HOOKS” that ultimately convert users.
  • How easily do CTA and other web page segments convert users (desktop and mobile) into customers?

Due to this approach, an online business website has data-backed website redesigning solutions that truly work.

Rebuild Buyer Buyer Journey

On-Page Surveys

To better understand what users expect and feel about the various segments of a site, on-page surveys help a lot. To do this, placing open-ended questions for users to answer across various segments helps. These surveys let us know a lot about users and their behavior. For example, the demography, user goals and anything that causes friction within the site.

The reason to do this is to use such data to build new buyer personas. And correspondingly, create a navigation framework to map buyers journeys through various web pages. Thereby, creating successful conversion funnels.

Inspect SEO and Technical Aspects of the Website

Most clients forego SEO in the hopes of gaining an audience using other digital marketing practices. However, this is one of the website redesign pitfalls that one must avoid.

Whether you consult a web design company in Mississauga or of any other city around the world, all will agree on one thing.

And that is, “Finding one’s website rank as a search result, even if a local search, makes a huge impact on the business.” To enumerate, it displays credibility, authority and trustworthiness, all in a go.

Around 16,000 external search quality raters rate the quality and worthiness of various web pages for ranking on search result pages. For this, they follow Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. In this ranking rating, a website’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) play a vital role. And that’s possible when a website has a strong SEO.

Which is why, ignoring SEO in a redesign process planning is a BIG NO NO.

Check that Page Elements Work in Favour of SEO

Older/ un-updated sites run the risk of missing essential on-page SEO elements like jumbled subheading structure or outbound links running into 404 error pages.

A website revamp is the perfect opportunity to correct that.

Under this, one performs numerous SEO tasks like editing title tags, creating better meta descriptions, introducing relevant keywords, updating content, etc. that upscales the web pages.

Evaluate Website Performance on Search Engine Rankings

Every day Google comes across unique phrases that users use to search for a particular thing. Due to this, as website redesign best practices, a site must research and optimize for new keywords that competitors use for drawing in web traffic.

“Research, Hunt and Optimize keywords to Outsmart Counterparts. “

Chart Out Performance Metrics

The next step in the website redesign phase is analyzing a website’s performance in terms of web traffic, engagement, speed, mobile-friendliness, cross-browser compatibility, usability and functionality.

This step helps judge and chart out the specific problems and grey areas that to date have been hindering the site from performing to its full potential.

Some of the website audit tools that Cube InfoTech, an Ecommerce website design company in Toronto, Canada uses for its clients are listed here below.

a. Google Analytics

A place to know a lot about your website performance, including (but not limited to) user activity on site, Engagement Overview, Landing Pages Report, Conversion & Event Reports, and so much more.

This is a must if one has an underperforming website.

b. Heatmapping

A graphical representation technique, using color coding to represent user behavior on web pages. This analysis proves beneficial in tracking roadblocks/ distractions/issues that hinder users from taking the intended action.

c. Google PageSpeed Insights

Google has this beneficial tool to know the speed of various web pages on mobile and desktop devices.

Not only that, it also provides suggestions to improve speed issues.

Most importantly, they are necessary for passing the Core Web Vitals assessment (how well a website performs with users/ how users experience your website)

d. Multi-Browser Compatibility Test

How seamlessly does a website work on,

• Web browsers (like Mozilla, Chrome, Safari, etc.)
• Devices and their screen sizes (desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones)
• Network conditions (internet speeds and connectivity types)

These tests help website redesigners know the scope of overhaul a site must go through, to stay strong among hundreds of others.

e. Responsiveness

Things don’t end with compatibility testing. One needs to move further and analyze deeper.

• For instance, the look and feel of the site when viewed from different devices.
• Additionally, how seamlessly functional the site is on various wireframes for phones, tablets, etc.
• Second, how does the content look on various screens? Does the reader need to scroll to reach the goal/ intended action endlessly?
• Then, is the font style and color consistent and readable across different devices?
• Fourth, are all links (outbound and internal) working? Do they navigate the viewer to the expected page?

Fifth, is it seamless for the user to return to the homepage easily while going through the other web pages?

f. Session Recordings

A laborious and time-intensive task. Session recording helps greatly for websites that, though new, fail to meet goals.

Under this, a website designer observes how users interact with various content on the site. To elaborate, are they able to reach intended goals, interact freely with the web content and take action?

This analysis is also greatly helpful to see if there are any pitfalls or hindrances that might be hiding in plain sight. Additionally, these live and real recordings also draw attention to any bugs, errors or broken links that hinder a website’s performance.

g. Competitor Analysis

There is a reason why a website redesign is usually expensive, time-consuming and yet highly rewarding in the long run.

Customers always seek the best products/services and the easiest yet most efficient user experience. In short, all that compels a user to take action on a competitor’s site.

To become the customer’s choice, it becomes crucial to identify and integrate various aspects the competition does better than us. Improving things like product/service offerings, delivery methods, payment process or even subscriptions, coupons or gift cards go a long way in making a website better than others.

Final Note

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Redesign is a deep process that demands thorough planning. Because, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Hence, to make the best use of the resources, time and money of valuable clients, it’s necessary to know right where to hammer the nail.

Cube InfoTech is a website design and development agency that has been catapulting small businesses and startups to the echelons of online success.

Contact us for website design, redesign, revamp or a complete overhaul of your website for a renewed and robust business.