How to Approach a Website Redesign

Notably, it takes website visitors a split second to decide whether they like the site. Adobe states that 38% of visitors abandon websites that they don’t consider to be attractive. That is because the platform’s look is often associated with the quality of its products. A compelling website leads to strong brand positioning and favorably distinguishes it from competitors. Moreover, it substantially improves client engagement, brings more customers, and, therefore, boosts profits. In this post, Andersen’s UI/UX professionals will share how website redesign services breathe new life into businesses’ digital presences, and how to embark on the process.

What a website redesign is and why it’s important

A website redesign process refers to the auditing and subsequent rebuilding of a website. This can be done for several reasons, the most frequent of which are the need to improve the platform’s performance and increase sales. Businesses attract clients by ensuring a seamless user experience.

The rebuild can be superficial with no substantial changes to the website’s architecture but with minor amendments to its look; then it’s often referred to as a website refresh. However, a true website redesign often requires comprehensive SEO analytics, deep reconsideration of its architecture, and significant changes to its code, visual look, and content.

The website redesign process can be performed on the following levels:

• UI redesign refers to amending the platform’s visual concept, e.g. the color scheme or the style in which the graphics are presented, while preserving the user experience;
• UX redesign means revising the platform’s architecture and logic while preserving its visual concept;
• Tech redesign is aimed at improving the platform’s performance by revising its technology stack and your SEO strategy;
• Finally, a thorough redesign involves making changes at all the aforementioned levels.

What are the advantages of website redesign, and why would your business need it?

• By creating compelling and eye-catching layouts, you’ll attract more clients and increase conversion rates;
• By ensuring an outstanding user experience, you’ll prevent visitors from leaving your platform without performing the desired actions;
• By linking your company with a highly performant and visually attractive interface, you’ll boost your brand’s reputation;
• By adroitly communicating your ideas to your audience, you’ll reach your business goals;
• Finally, by improving your platform’s performance, you’ll ensure the success of your SEO campaign and gain a competitive edge.

Why redesign a website?

The need to introduce changes to a company’s platform can occur for the following reasons:

Insufficient performance and low conversion rates

After conducting a website audit and collecting analytics, you might find out that your platform is underperforming. This can be for a variety of reasons, from the lack of necessary elements on your page, e.g. a CTA button or contact details, to the employment of an outdated technology stack or inefficient SEO strategy. At any rate, flaws in performance lead to inadequate business results. A professional website redesign company will help you improve the situation by using proven techniques and best UI/UX practices to increase your platform’s speed and draw organic traffic.

Outdated design

If a business is undergoing a rebranding process, is striving to embrace new design and technology trends, or is introducing changes to its products and services, the current website design can become outdated. In any of these cases, you might need to revise your platform’s visual look, and change its layouts and functionality to ensure efficient user flow and consistency of your brand’s style.

The need to adjust the design to diverse devices

According to recent statistics, nine out of ten of the world’s Internet users surf the web via their mobile devices, using them for over half of their time on the Internet. Therefore, if your platform isn’t mobile-friendly, users will find it challenging to find their way through it and will ultimately abandon it.

Things to consider before a website redesign

When sharing valuable website redesign tips with you, we couldn’t avoid mentioning some groundwork that needs to be done before you actually start rebuilding your platform. The things to be considered beforehand are the current state of your website and the needs of the audience.

Know your target audience

To organize a truly customer-focused web presence, you first need to know who your target audience is and what motivates them to take the desired actions. To create buyer personas, i.e. the portrait of your typical customers, you can conduct a customer survey right on your current platform. This will give you a better understanding of your audience’s motives, preferences, interests, social standing, payment capabilities, etc. Keep your customers in mind while redesigning your platform to ensure a personalized user experience and increase satisfaction rates.

Take your current platform’s strengths and weaknesses into consideration

Based on your website’s map and wireframes, thoroughly analyze each page by using such tools as Google Analytics, SEMrush, and others. This will help you to know where fundamental changes are required to increase conversions, and where, on the contrary, the conversions and traffic are high and, therefore, minor amendments can be applied, at most.

Learn what user needs aren’t met with your current platform

Carefully track user behavior on your website by using session recording tools, heatmaps, user feedback forms, Google Analytics, insights from your sales departments, etc. Identifying the flaws in user paths will help you improve user experience through redesign, establish efficient CTAs, and ensure your clients successfully complete their customer journeys.

Needless to say, turning to experienced Business Analysts employed by a reliable website redesign company will allow you to efficiently perform the aforementioned research, as well as help you through the steps that will be covered in the following section.

How to redesign a website: a step-by-step approach

Below is a website redesign checklist compiled by Andersen’s UI/UX experts for companies to follow:

Conduct an audit of your current website

Involve experienced SEO specialists to analyze your website’s SEO performance and determine the constraints that lower it. In addition, they will evaluate user paths to identify flaws and inconsistencies. Thus, you’ll be able to build an efficient redesign strategy upon solid analytics and proven metrics.

Andersen’s teams have a proven track record of providing website redesign services. For example, we successfully carried out a website audit for a large Telecom provider. In spite of substantial investments in their platform, the conversions were lower than anticipated, and visitors were leaving the website without completing targeted actions. As a result of Andersen’s website redesign efforts, technical discrepancies were eliminated, which allowed for improved user experience and increased client satisfaction rates.

Determine your goals

The clear picture gained as a result of the previous stage will allow you to determine your business goals. Perhaps you want to boost conversions, communicate your brand’s values to the audience, or attract traffic. Each of these goals requires choosing a different redesign type with its techniques, tools, and specialists.

Build a strategy

Adjust it to your goals. Draw up a detailed sitemap that includes all the pages of your reworked platform and their elements. Work out the ways of communicating your brand’s values to the platform’s visitors. Conduct testing of the interface prototypes on users; we recommend turning to A/B testing so that users can choose the design option that better serves their needs. Finally, elaborate a solid SEO strategy to introduce changes that will strengthen your SEO performance.

Choose a website redesign company

Reliable UI/UX design agencies provide their customers with highly experienced teams which include a UI/UX designer, a graphic designer, a Front-end developer, an SEO specialist, a marketing specialist, a Business Analyst, and a QA engineer. To find a trusted agency, ensure that it’s represented on leading rating platforms such as Clutch, GoodFirms, Awwwards, etc., review their case studies, and find out whether they have a well-established workflow with clear work allocation and streamlined processes.

Andersen has been delivering efficient website redesign services to our customers for the past fifteen years. For instance, consider our reworking of the business logic and architecture of this finance app for a mobile bank. As a result of our efforts, the company’s infrastructure is now based on the most recent technologies and managed in an efficient manner.

Conclusion

A well-thought-out website redesign process brings outstanding results, although its implementation might seem a complex and challenging task. If you’re considering whether it’s time to introduce changes or don’t know how to redesign a website in an efficient yet cost-effective manner, feel free to contact us for a consultation. Andersen’s top-notch UI/UX professionals will be delighted to give you a hand with evaluating the current state of your website and suggesting improvements to boost your business efficiency.