Revamping your business’ site may seem simple. However, the redesign of a project can be a difficult task. There are often multiple factors that need to be considered. Besides that, the entire team involved in the revamp has opinions on what will lead to success. There is also the fact that internal pressure might force you to get started before you have fully achieved your goals. Here are five crucial questions that we at Sketch Corp Branding Agency believe you should ask yourself before you decide to begin the redesign process.
1. Why are you redesigning the site?
It sounds like a simple question but you need to have a specific set of reasons why you feel the redesign of the site is important. While it is important to revamp a site that is beginning to look like a relic, you need to have specific reasons why you feel the redesign matters.
For the redesign project, it is recommended that you have at list three goals. This way, when it comes time to make hard decisions during the revamp, you can follow the roadmap you set forth at the beginning. The goals should follow the SMART model of decision-making.
2. What are Your Values?
Before any work begins, you need to ask yourself what your organization stands for. In short, you need to understand the values that define your organization. For instance, you can ask yourself what you do best than others. You can then ask yourself how you hope to evolve in the near future. If you are not able to define your values, your audience cannot also do it.
When you can agree with people involved with the project what your identity is as an organization, you will be able to utilize a focused approach to the website redesign. This will mean that you can pick the right colors, images, and other graphics that are unique to you. An authentic site fosters real connections with users, which can ensure better growth for the organization.
3. What are the Competitors doing?
The main aim you have a site is because you want to compete with the competitors online and offline. You will thus need to research the competition. Find out how ahead they in terms of visual design, messaging, and the functionality.
The design team needs to perform competitive analysis. By checking out the competition, you will identify various audience needs that might not exist on your site. You may also find that there are various functions, which have become standard but you do not offer on your site. Besides that, you might find that users in your space are frustrated by the competition. As a result, this might create an opportunity for you to get far ahead of them.
4. What is Your Target Audience?
When designing your site, it is crucial that you have a user-centered focus. You might have a beautiful and elegant site but if it is not targeted at your users, it will not succeed. Before you even start the design process, you need to ensure that you understand how it will affect the user experience. This can be done via the use of AB testing. As a result, you will be able to know what they need from you.
When you have designed what your users want and why they come to the site, you can then compare that to the goals of your business. This will help you to refine the content on your site in a manner that helps your site become more effective. To understand your audience, you can conduct interviews, audience mapping, and surveys.
5. What Resources Do You Have to Support the Revamped Site?
When you create the new site, it will still need a lot of support once it goes live and during the design phase. You will need to prepare to support various things such as:
- Decision Making
Before you begin work, ensure that you have a clear structure on who will make decisions in the design phase. This will determine how fast you can get through the design phase. In general, the more complex the decision-making process, the longer it will take to make even simple tweaks.
- Content
The main draw to any site is content. If the revamp will require that you update the content, ensure you have the resources to do so. Besides that, you will need to have a plan to add more content over time. This is because search engines rank a site based on how much new content they add to the site. If you are not adding content internally, you will need to have a budget to purchase high-quality content.
- Technical Maintenance
To ensure that the site continues to operate as normal, you will need to ensure that you make the latest updates as soon as they are released. If you do not have the skills in-house, you need to ensure that you have a budget to make the updates when they arrive.
- Marketing
Once you launch the site, it needs to integrate with any digital marketing efforts you are carrying out. For instance, if you are doing social media marketing and email marketing, the site needs to work with those efforts with ease. Ensure that you consider what resources you will need for this effort and that you have them. While you can still get traffic organically, paid traffic can help to boost the quality of traffic to your site.
Summary
Whether you are planning to make a total overhaul of the site or you just wish to revamp the site, there are many uncertainties you will face. However, you can ease the process by answering the above five questions before you start the process. This will save you time and resources. It will also give you peace of mind once the site launches since you will know that it was money well spent. In short, a bit of preparedness will give you more of a band for your buck.