6 Steps To Prepare For A Website Redesign
Ready to upgrade your website?
Whether you’ve noticed that’s it’s lagging or realized it’s stuck in the early 2000’s it’s time for a site refresh. But getting started isn’t always easy, or at least, you shouldn’t dive all in on updating the tech until you prepare.
Why should you even bother with these steps?
Save time by not redoing the same items over and over. You know those people who never read directions when assembling furniture? Then they waste an hour undoing the wrong things they did when they could have been sipping a margarita and chillaxing? That doesn’t sound like fun to me.
You’ll save money. If you’ve got money to burn, well, call me up! If not, being prepared will save you money when it comes to paying a designer by the hour. Even my day rate can easily be lost money when a client still doesn’t have everything ready.
What if you’re DIYing your site? You’ll still save money. Imagine going out and connecting with a potential client versus being stuck redoing your service page because you didn’t know you’d be adding XYZ in?
Here are the 6 things you should do before starting your website refresh.
Know your website analytics!
Here’s the thing, you shouldn’t make any drastic changes to your website without knowing what your numbers are. You want to understand how your user is getting to the site and the most popular content.
For example, if you see that your most popular page is one of the services you’re planning on removing, you can then make a decision about redirecting that traffic to another page or updating the current one to talk about your other services.
Understand the ideal user journey.
The user journey is basically the path that your site visitor goes through to get to the end result, whether it’s buying your newest product or signing up for a call to discuss your services. You want this path to be clear and swift.
Don’t be coy. Your headlines and buttons should be direct. Don’t let the user guess where they should go next - they usually make the choice you didn’t want.
Here’s how you can outline a basic journey:
User lands on home page > Main Call to Action: Lead Magnet > User signs up for lead magnet
List out the changes you’ll make to the website.
Now that you understand the ideal user journey and analytics on your website, you can start adding or subtracting content. This can include pages, blog posts, products, services, etc. Make a list of what you’ll keep and delete, then, make a note of the items being deleted that need a webpage redirect or explanation for users.
Look over all of your brand assets.
Gather all your brand visuals, including your website, postcards sent to clients, business cards, menus, and social media channels. Ask yourself:
Am I using typography consistently?
Are my colors and their dominance the same across the board?
Is the use of images/graphics consistent and providing the right mood?
Start creating new copy for your website.
Now that you know what you’ll be adding or changing, you can start updating your copy. Start with the pages that will gain the most traffic, such as the home and about pages, then move on to sales pages, such as services.
Make sure that your mood and tone are consistent. If you’re brand is sassy, it should be sassy everywhere - not shift into a corporate tone randomly.
Get new photos shot or purchase stock images.
Finally, my favorite part, other than diving into the website redesign: choosing new photos. If you have the budget, schedule a brand photoshoot. These can be general images to replace the ones on the site plus some great team or headshots.
Don’t have a budget for a session? No worries. Gather about 5 stock images from either Unsplash (free) or Creative Market (paid). Note that I never recommend buying a package of images unless necessary. You also don’t need to sign up for a photo subscription service. Why? Clients don’t ever make good use of all the images they are getting or some images don’t make sense for their brand. Instead, save that monthly amount for your next brand photoshoot.
Once the above is done, you’re in a much better position to start your website redesign project.
Save time, save money and finally redesign your website! Have questions? Place them in the comments below.
