So you have decided to do a redesign of your current website. A redesign can be a huge success or it could mean a trip to the unemployment line. It’s a long and hard process. Whether you’re working with an agency or doing it yourself the most important aspect is strategy.
Every redesign starts with a vision and/or problem. The better you are at defining this vision and/or problem at the very beginning, the more successful the redesign will be and the smoother the entire process will be as a result.
There are seven stages of website redesign.
- Strategy
- Plan
- Design
- Build
- Optimize/Test
- Launch/Promote
- Analyze
But none of the latter six stages can be completed without focusing time on the first and most important stage: strategy
Now, what are the top five things to remember while create your Strategy?
Benchmark Your Current Metrics: Knowing where you are is very important in getting to where you want to be. Know your numbers:
- Number of visits/visitors/unique visitors
- Bounce rate
- Time on site
- Current SEO rankings for important keywords
- Etc…
Determine Your Goals: This is the why question? Why are you doing a redesign? Make sure that there are metrics behind the why. These numbers should tie into current metrics in one way or another.
Define Your Brand: This is what question. What do you want to say? How do you want to say it? Determine this from the get-go so that you have one message across your site.
Define Your Buyer Persona: The site you redesign is not for you. It’s for your customers. Build it with them in mind. Focus groups, outside eyes are very helpful here. They keep you from getting tunnel vision.
Analyze the Competition: Look to see what other sites are doing. What is working for them? There is no need to reinvent the wheel. See what others are doing, what is working and more importantly, what is not working.
Look, I have not told you anything that you don’t already know, but it is something that in my experience is not looked at until after the project has started. Don’t worry about databases, and programming languages. Worry about getting the message right.
