Redesigning a website is part of a regular marketing strategy for most successful businesses. Even if you have a well-functioning website, after a few years, you will notice that competitor websites are improving their sites with updated styles, content and services, thus increasing their organic rankings in Google. In order to compete, you will need to keep up the pace and update the look of your existing website.
Deciding to move forward with the redesign is one thing, but actually doing it is something else entirely. Here are some important things that you should consider before you start the actual process.
1
Back up your old site
When doing a redesign, a lot of things can go wrong. A small mistake in the code on a page might disrupt the functionality of several other pages. For instance, a new slider you were very excited about might render the entire website unusable.
In these scenarios, it is a good idea to revert back to the old version of your website while you pinpoint and fix new issues. So, before you start with the new design, create a backup for the old one.
2
Redefine your goals and target audiences
This is an excellent opportunity to get back to the drawing board and see if you can improve your business goals with the new design. In many cases, a website redesign happens when a business is experiencing growth. So, it is important to use this momentum and improve the very core of your business.
Talk about setting new, bigger milestones and work on redefining your target audience. The new design will welcome a whole new customer demographic, so be prepared.
3
Create relevant content with SEO in mind
With the new design, you should also work on new content – a new homepage text, new articles for your blog, new texts for the services page, etc. Of course, the content you have on your old site will be of use, but – again – this is a new beginning. You should focus on creating content that is better than what you had before.
Your goal is to reach a better rank in terms of SEO, so creating a new set of keywords and defining a new marketing strategy is not at all a bad idea.
4
Think about making an explainer video
The new design will hopefully introduce new features and services. There might be some new functionalities that you want to showcase. Your customers, both old and new, might have issues identifying these innovations.
A good idea here is to make an explained video where you will showcase your new design to everyone.
5
Broken link management
And, finally, when the new site is up and running, chances are that some broken links will emerge. Your new site map will be different than the old one. You should cross reference all links and see if there are any broken pages.
When you identify them all, create a redirect system where these broken pages will directly be diverted to the new ones.
Conclusion
A website redesign is a sign that you are moving forward as a company. Make sure to consider the aforementioned tips and be extremely careful. You want your new design to be a success, but if you don’t pay attention, it might end up hurting you more than you can imagine. So, play it safe and you won’t have anything to worry about.
