Have you been sitting staring at your website lately thinking it’s time for a refresh? Redesigning a website is pretty similar to remodeling a room at home. It’s not only about a quick coat of paint, it’s about all the pieces that work together to create the perfect ambience.
It’s the same for a website redesign. You can’t just fill in a couple of fresh colors. You need to think about all the components of your site.
Before you start adding new features, you need to be prepared for potential issues. This is where you cover the valuables and lay down the tarp. If you don’t, you’re going to regret the mess later on.
So before you start tinkering with coding, step back and start right at the beginning to avoid these 3 website design mistakes.
Mistake #1: No Strategy or Goals
Starting a new project is exciting, right? You want to hit the ground running, the ideas and images are overflowing in your mind and you want to make it a reality, but stop just for a minute.
A gung-ho attitude isn’t going to help here; you need to start by setting out goals. SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) goals. This will help you to determine what your site needs to achieve.
For instance, let’s say your goal is to gain 20% more contacts in the next quarter. That affects your redesign in that you’ll need to plan for more calls to action, landing pages, and forms. But if you don’t set out those goals, you won’t realize that.
Mistake #2: Not Basing Your Decisions on Numbers
Bad news: a website redesign involves math.
Yes, of course there’s heaps of creativity that go into a redesign, too, but data and analytics are at the heart of it all. Since goals drive your redesign, it is important to know your site metrics. Before even starting the redesign, you need to use data to assess what has and hasn’t been working.
Neglecting analytics presents two problems: you risk changing things that are working exceptionally well and you risk holding on to badly performing elements.
Mistake #3: Keeping Your Content
Remember when you first designed your website, or last updated it? You probably spent hours upon hours crafting cool phrases and relevant information to display on your pages. As great as that content is, you can’t hold onto it forever.
Since you’ll be changing your format, structure and design, it makes sense to change your content. You may want to place more emphasis on videos and illustrations, for example.
Speaking of content, we’re not just referring to the basic website pages. Your overall content strategy – including blogging and providing helpful, relevant information – should also adapt to the redesign. You should be boasting premium content on every page, so if you add new pages, you may need new top-quality content.
Are You Up for the Challenge?
These are just 3 key challenges you face with a website redesign. Knowing what you’re up against is half the battle. If you’re ready to maneuver these obstacles and create an incredible site for your business, give Millennium a call at 1-877-873-7445 or shoot me, Mark Dingman, an email at mdingman@mill-im.com. I also love a good Twitter conversation so find me online at @MRDingman.
