The eCommerce store’s user interface (UI) is the first thing that visitors will face and fall in love with! The ones that create an impactful first impression can go a long way. Of course, the products, services, and user experience (UX) will gain you brownie points and are equivalently important, but the primary thing will always remain what look and feel the website is providing! If you’re considering a website redesign, there are certain parameters you need to keep in mind. A vague makeover will not provide the desired ROI and all the efforts can go in vain. Thus, targeted website redesign best practices need to be followed. Brace yourself as this guide to website redesign will help you do the job easily.
The website redesign is a major decision to make. There are many factors that need attention before you actually implement the website redesign process. The process contains after-effects that need special considerations. There might be an SEO rank drop, you might need more than one variant to A/B test the landing pages, product page designs, checkout page designs/process and more. This compendium will walk you through some website redesign best practices you can count on.
Table of Contents
Things to Consider Before Undertaking a Website Redesign
#1 Competition and Inspiration
The foremost step to the website redesign process is to check out a few competitor websites with higher rankings, better visuals, and good customer base. Keeping the branding aside for neutrality, consider what factors they’re focusing on and the kind of optic attractions they’re providing; videos, images, fonts, colors, et Cetra. This also helps in identifying what sort of customer journey their website provides.
More importantly, when you decide to redesign the existing website after analyzing few competitors, you come to know what loopholes were there which you should focus more this time or what are the eCommerce factors that are missing and need to be added.
When you take inspiration from other websites, make sure to bookmark the changes you feel are right for your website. Collecting and saving this data will help the designers come up with better mock-ups when they’re informed properly.
#2 Examine the Existing Site
Once you’re ready with the types of alterations you wish for on your website, the second step is to examine the current status before undertaking the website redesign process. Examining here stands for studying the website metrics thoroughly for the performance. With the help of analytic tools, get to know the best traffic-generating pages on your website. It is better to have this data handy for a better understanding of user trends.
Examining the current scenario of the website makes you aware of the kind of pages that work for you. Take note of most converting campaigns, products, and traffic pulling elements present. Optimizing the current successful pages and rebuilding the new ones with the same content architecture and design aspects can help you gain good ranking.
Moreover, the weak spots on a website and where people are leaving the page without taking the desired action also helps you modify in those areas. This step is critical in a website redesign process the whole agenda of the process is to improve performance.
#3 The Color Psychology and Design
Consider website redesign as rebranding and create a persona that represents your brand! Color psychology plays an important role when it comes to eye-catching details, CTA buttons, highlighting factors, and action causing elements.
The product placement, title font, buying icons, description tone, and used imagery should be in sync that portrays consistency throughout. Study customer color psychology charts before finalizing the combinations and palette. Making your designers aware of the message that you want to pass on via colors and designs should be clear enough for them to create the type of layout.
The website design should also depict a hierarchy in a way that is easy to understand, fast, and clear. Setting up such a design model improves the buyer journey through different levels of the marketing funnel. Being consistent is the key to all the stages of a website redesign.
#4 Content Strategy
‘A website’s success depends on its content’ – and the saying has 100% accuracy to it!
Content does not mean the way you’ve explained things but rather how suitable it is when people search for it. Thorough explaining won’t make a difference if it isn’t searchable. When you plan to revamp your website, content is the factor you should never leave behind.
CGA – Content Gap Analysis is the first step for any content strategy building. Analyze the current website content and find the keyword gap that needs to be filled. Long tail and intent oriented keywords should be in prime focus whenever you design any product page or category pages. Call to action and internal linking are two integral parts you can’t miss out on when revamping the website content.
Additionally, adding a Blog Section to your website is advisable to draw more traffic. Studies show that websites who blog witness 55% more visitors than those who don’t. Blogs are great to establish a connection with your visitors and helping them learn more about your brand. Providing informative content stands for selling without being salesy! Website redesign calls for a content refresh (if needed) too. Putting up sections that users can relate to and frequently search for adds to your website’s credibility as well.
#5 Technical SEO
All that you change and improve is only worth it when people will be able to see and utilize it. That’s where the Search Engine Optimization enters! The basic on-page SEO with Title and Meta Tags are essential and should always be there as and when you design even a single page. But technical SEO is for improved search rankings and better visibility.
- The page URLs being crisp and clutter-free is the first aspect of technical SEO. Get it done for all the pages present on your website and design a sitemap for the search engine crawlers.
- The website security – SSL certified websites are another important ranking factor and should never be neglected. Make sure you’re using the https// for your website while redesigning it if you aren’t already.
- It’s no secret that longer page loads can adversely affect your traffic and sales, but it can also highly affect your position in search results. The page load speed is one more unmissable factor for technical SEO. Whenever you’re considering the website redesign, use the compressed images and provide Alt tags to it. High-quality visuals that do not hinder the page load speed is what you need to keep in mind.
- AMP-enabled websites get higher rankings, especially in Google search and thus, make amends with your hosting provider or developer to comply with the themes that are Accelerated Mobile Pages enabled.
#6 Timeline
The final stage is to set a deadline for the website redesign process. Keeping all the above-mentioned components in mind, set a timeline that allows you to test and tweak the changes made.
A website that is responsive, scalable, and backed with powerful UX/UI is like the star features, but when you’re actually making the redesigned website live, check it on various browsers and devices for its compatibility.
Choose a time that allows you all these changes to never miss out on important aspects.
Over To You
The website redesign process involves a lot of effort and alterations. The ones happening without proper homework won’t weave the desired fruits. This is a result-oriented process and should be done for improved conversions. You should keep the short and long-term goals in mind before you take on the website redesign. The episode we published above includes prime website redesign factors that require attention. The process is daunting but not when you have experts to help you underlying the process. Get in touch with our eCommerce handymen for a free mock-up of your website today!
