Did you know that 94% of visitors don’t trust outmoded or outdated websites?
Refreshing your website design can be a daunting task. It’s not always easy to know if it’s worth the investment, or how much you’re going to have to spend on it.
Did you realize that your website is no longer the main starting point of information about your company? Today thumbnail snippets, headlines, and other elements on search engines help interested visitors quickly understand if this will be a destination worth visiting, before they click on your links.
Be sure to read on to gain valuable insight into redesigning your website along with business website ROI.
Why Redesign Your Website?
First impressions count. Your visitors will judge you before they even start reading your landing page by the design quality and choice of images alone.
If you’re not in touch with current design trends or user expectations, you could be losing out on potential customers.
A website redesign can have a huge impact on your business, with the possibility of increasing customer loyalty and conversions. A well-designed website will:
- Increase sales
- Improve conversion rates and
- Create an emotional connection with your customers
But before you rush into anything, there are some things that you need to take into consideration.
The Purpose of Your Website
Your website represents you, your brand, and your purpose. Do you have a clear concise view of what your website purpose is?
One way to figure out your purpose is by asking yourself: “If I were starting this business today, what actions could I take right away?”
In other words, what problem am I solving or pain am I relieving for the people in my target market? This is what your website needs to communicate front and center. It is the secret sauce your visitors want.
If you don’t give it to them, someone else will!
Your website is the most important marketing tool you have. It’s what people will see before they ever get to know your company or what you can do for them.
What Do You Want Visitors to Do Once They’ve Arrived?
Do you have a clear idea of what it is that you want visitors to do once they’ve arrived? Does your website convey this?
If not, your website needs work. Visitors come in with different goals and expectations for their visit to your site. Do you know what those are?
The following questions will help you focus on this aspect of your website:
- What should my visitor’s first impression be like on my website?
- How do I make visitors feel welcome on my site?
- How do I keep them engaged so they stay longer?
Website Redesign Return on Investment (ROI)
A lot of business owners are hesitant to invest in a redesign of their website. Some think it’s too expensive and some think it takes too long.
But what they don’t realize is that the ROI can be huge! In fact, according to recent studies, businesses that redesigned their websites saw an average page-view increase by 80%. It’s worth exploring the idea of a website redesign with your team before you decide against it.
How to Calculate Website ROI?
You can calculate website ROI by using the following formula:
[Average customer value x Annual customers generated] / [Annual website redesign cost] is the website ROI.Average customer value is the lifetime income you expect to earn per customer you get from your website.
Annual customers generated is the number of customers coming through the website each year.
Annual website redesign cost is the running costs and annual part of your website development. You spend $3,000 on the website redesign. You expect to redesign the website every 2 years.
Then the annual part of website development costs would be $1,500.
Website return on investment is the key factor in any redesign work. After all, you want your website making you money.
When Should You Redesign a Website?
Anecdotal evidence confirms that most companies undergo a website redesign every 6 months to 2 years. Most site owners (68%) feel it is necessary for the website to be redesigned at least once every one to three years.
What this tells you is ongoing performance monitoring and re-evaluation of your website capabilities is a sound business decision. But sometimes it is difficult to find the time or expertise to do this.
Take a Critical Look at Your Website
Before starting on a complete redesign of your website, it is essential that you look at your site through the eyes of your visitors.
Take a few hours and look at your website from the perspective of someone who is not familiar with what you do.
- What are their thoughts on its design?
- How easily does it seem to navigate around the site?
- Does anything make them feel uncomfortable or frustrated with trying to find the information they need?
Don’t look at how you will fix any problems you see. Just write them down.
What you are doing is just seeing what is there from an external viewpoint. Remember things that are obvious to you are not obvious to your customers.
And don’t forget to write down the good stuff too. When you do your redesign this is the stuff you want to keep.
Once you have finished this exercise, take a breath, relax. Come back tomorrow for the next stage. You need time to declutter your mind.
Tomorrow’s here. Take out a clean sheet of paper. At the top of the page write down: “My ideal customer is …”
Halfway down, write: “They visit my website to …”
Your next job right is to complete these two statements.
This may be a bit of a tooth-pulling, hair-tearing kind of exercise. But you don’t have to do it alone.
Get your team involved. Brainstorm.
Share the pain. It will be worth it in the long run. And as an added bonus, you will get a great idea of how your team sees your customers and business.
The Ideal Website
Trends change fast in web design and visitors are looking for informative engaging on-point content. The website should be easy to use and navigate.
Visitors want the company’s message quickly without having to search for it or scroll through a ton of content. They also expect more information about products, services and how they can get in touch with the visitors.
Is your website clean and crisp?
Is your website responsive to all devices from mobile phones right through to high-end desktops?
Your website needs to load fast. No matter how good your design and content is, if you leave your visitor out in the cold, they’ll leave you without hesitation. Remember research by Microsoft determined the average attention span of a human was shorter than that of a goldfish.
Be fast or be last!
Website Content
Modern websites include many types of media.
But blog posts, images and videos are often used to convey information.
A blog post can be as short or long as the company dictates but it should always have a point of view. Successful blog posts also use images that support the content.
Videos usually last about two minutes or as long as an hour. The length depends on the style of video—directional, informational, or how to do something. They keep people’s attention span by using screenshots, graphics, animation, and motion clips.
Content should be original and as creative, informative, and interesting as possible. And it should meet user needs—solving their problems or providing information when they need it most.
This encourages people to come back again for more of what you offer.
Content also needs to be optimized for keywords and phrases that are often searched by users for information.
If you have video content, it needs to be optimized so search engines can easily find them and rank them high in the SERPs. Writing content that ranks well in Google and other search engines is a specialized skill.
It is important to identify what your customers are looking for and write your content around that. This is how search engines will send relevant visitors to your website.
Website Look and Feel
A website redesign isn’t just about a new layout and colors; it’s also about responding to the changing needs of your customers in an increasingly digital world.
An attractive website will help to retain current clients, as well as attract new ones. The website should be modern and fast.
It needs to use a responsive design so it works well on all devices, including mobile phones and tablets.
Navigation needs to be intuitive and easy to use. You can provide a better customer experience by simplifying the website’s layout, making it easier to use.
The website should be easy for people with disabilities to access. If possible you want all users across different devices to have continuity in their browsing experience. Make sure everything matches up from one screen size or type of device to another.
Graphics and content should be aligned with the company’s branding to create a consistent look and feel that is recognizable.
The website should also offer visitors the ability to interact on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. This way they can share what they find interesting about your site and bring more traffic back to you.
The website needs to be updated with fresh content regularly, so it doesn’t get stale or irrelevant over time. Many modern websites use blogs to boost communication and interaction with visitors.
Blogs can also be used to tell your story, share images of events or products, and offer behind-the-scenes looks at what you do. They are relatively simple to write and are great to keep visitors up-to-date on your company’s news.
The Back End
Web sites are not just pretty picture postcards. Many websites do a lot of heavy lifting, for example:
- Capturing client details
- Generating custom content
- Recording analytics data
Often the back end of a website is just as important, if not more so, than what you see on the front.
This is where a website can swim or sink. The right backend framework will help you save time, improve staff efficiency, and build a website that performs.
There are many back-end frameworks available, and they all have varying levels of complexity which you need to master to maximize your website performance.
Issues you need to consider in the back end of your website include how much customization is required and the level of complexity that your staff is comfortable with.
Some back-end frameworks are easier to learn and implement than others, but they may not be as powerful. Others take a little longer to master but have the capability of making your website fly like never before.
The right framework for you will depend on how much time you are willing to spend implementing it and what level of expertise is available to you.
Out of the Ashes
With your website redesign, you will create a new opportunity for growth and expansion. The website is an extension of your company’s brand and image.
It presents the best version of your company to potential clients, prospects, and customers.
There are a lot of moving parts in redesigning a website to enhance performance and engage and convert visitors into consistent users of your products and services. But it hinges on the discoveries you have made on that sheet of paper where you worked out who your ideal customer is and what they need from you.
Now it’s time to turn all that hard work into results with an effective website design and SEO content strategy.
Boosting traffic, generating leads, or bringing more customers through the door, is crucial for your business growth. Contact us today to learn how we can help with your website redesign return on investment.
