Is it already well known enough that poor web design undermines the user experience and business conversion terribly? Yes, if you are not a newcomer to the web, you must have already known how sophisticated and user-centric web design leads to better sales and branding for any business.
But what about having an existing website that has the same kind of incompetence in terms of design? Yes, this is when the need for redesigning a website seems to be unavoidable. But where to start? What aspects should you give priority in redesigning? How can you assess that you need a redesign of your website? We are here to answer all these questions.
Does Your Website Need a Redesign?
Let’s ask the first question first; why your website needs a redesign? What are the clear signs that make redesigning the website practically unavailable? Even if you are considering hiring app developers to turn your website into a mobile app, you need to know your design shortcomings in detail. Here we briefly point out some clear signs that should trigger a decision to redesign a website.
- The website design looks outdated and not tuned to the present trends.
- The website lacks features and UI elements that most of your competitors are providing.
- User behavior suggests pain points and shortcomings in user experience.
- Your website is experiencing a steady decline in sales or business conversion.
- The website is having a declining rate of search engine ranks.
- The website audit shows several broken and bad links.
- Sluggish website performance and too long loading time.
- There are readability issues for the contents.
All these issues show that you need a redesign for the website. Now, let us explain some of the critical tips and practices for a successful redesign of your website.
Make a Comprehensive Review of the Entire Website
To redesign your website as a successful product, it is important to start with reviewing the existing website and all its underlying issues. Make a list of all those things on your website that work well and that are loved your audience. rethink how you can accommodate all these existing things in your redesigned website. Lastly, consider whether they are essential for the user experience and whether you can do it without them.
Now, let us come to the negative aspects for which you need a redesign. Make a list of these aspects that are detrimental to your user experience and business conversion. Can replacing or removing them make a negative impact on your business? What are the alternatives to serve their purpose while offering a better user experience? Do these aspects undermine website functionalities?
Understanding Your Audience
When redesigning a website, it is essential to grasp various aspects of your website project from the user’s perspective. How the redesign and the new features and UI elements will make their experience better is what you need to focus upon.
You must agree that the new design should not negatively impact the user’s convenience in case of a website redesign. You should also ensure a sophisticated look without not losing the usability and ease of access in terms of appearance. Having a balanced approach that combines designing for both sophisticated look and user experience will be ideal.
Evaluate the Competition
To understand the right direction for your website redesign, it is ideal for keeping learning from your competitor’s websites and integrating features and UI elements for a better experience.
Always choose a handful of few successful competitor websites and make a list of their common features, functionalities, and user experience attributes. As a customer, try to compare the ease of use for two competitor websites and their user experience.
Navigation
Often difficult navigation becomes the sole reason for many websites to go for redesigning. On the other hand, changing your existing website’s navigation can also trigger confusion among the customers and users. This is why it is important to have a balanced approach keeping both familiarity and new design elements.
Refreshing your Website Content
Redesigning a website also requires taking a fresh look at the content strategy and making necessary changes where applicable. It is important to replace the outdated content that is no longer relevant and purposeful.
In this respect, you can take inspiration from the trending topics and content that are getting popular in your niche. You can also create new content based upon the content that is gaining popularity on your website.
Optimize Your SEO
Ultimately, a website redesign is basically done to optimize the business conversion and sales, and SEO is the primary funnel to draw traffic and make sales happen. Some of the key ways to boost SEO during redesign include the following.
- Ensure using a site map to help a search engine find pages.
- Make sure to use SEO, optimized permalinks, keywords, page titles, and meta descriptions for every content.
- Check optimum readability for content,
- Optimize on-page SEO by using the right keywords, internal linking, and quality backlinks.
Ensure Optimum Performance and Loading Time
One of the biggest reasons for redesigning a website is to boost website performance and loading time. This is best done by using a time-tested website structure optimized for performance. Mobile-friendly navigation and UI elements help optimize the website for mobile users who happen to be the largest user group.
To ensure faster loading time, resize the images and use technologies like lazy loading. Using local caching is another popular way to allow quicker access to content irrespective of the network speed.
Conclusion
Finally, you must focus on helping your users complete tasks and finding content with minimum effort and maximum ease. If your redesign helped customers interacting with your business brand quickly, you are in the right direction.