Complete Guide to Website Redesign

Have you been thinking about redesigning your business’ website? Whether you want to redesign a Squarespace website or a custom one, there are a few things you will need to keep in mind during this process. Our guide will tell you everything you need to know about website redesigns and how to ensure yours produces the desired results.

Website Redesign vs. Website Refresh

You may have heard the terms “website redesign” and “website refresh” used interchangeably. While the two concepts are similar, there are significant differences between them that you should be aware of.

A website redesign is much larger in scope. In addition to stylistic updates, a redesign typically makes significant functional changes to the website. These could include improving load speeds, optimizing indexing, and adding third-party plug-ins to unlock additional features.

Why Redesign Your Website?

Website redesigns work best when your website has a quantifiable problem you can solve. For example, you might redesign your site to:

• Lower your bounce rate
• Raise your conversion rate
• Improve your user experience (UX) or your site’s responsiveness
• Improve your website’s SEO
• Update a dated design

Remember, a refresh and a redesign are two different things. Unless you need an extensive overhaul including added functionality, a refresh may be the better option for you.

How Long Does the Web Redesign Take?

In general, the entire website redesign process takes up to 90 days. However, more complex projects may take a website redesign agency longer to complete.

There are three main phases in this process:

Discovery. The discovery stage outlines your goals for your website and how you want to work on achieving them. It includes a full website redesign plan with detailed, actionable steps and milestones you can use to track your web design agency’s progress.

Design. The design phase involves creating blueprints and mock-ups. These demonstrate what the final website or landing page redesign will look like and how it will function when completed. You will need to sign off on these documents before your agency can begin working on the coding and graphic design necessary to bring your vision to fruition.

Launch. Once your website is finalized, your agency will launch it for you. The work does not end here, though. You must continue to monitor your website’s performance and user statistics, fixing any problems that appear and striving for continual improvement.

What Are Web Redesign Services?

There are four main types of website redesign services.

• Redecoration. A website redecorating changes the look of your website. Your web design agency might add more images or video, tweak your brand colours, or update your logo, graphics, and other visuals. This is the most limited (but also most affordable) form of website redesign.
• Rewire. Rewiring updates your website’s back-end features, including its code and data storage protocols. For example, you might choose to move your website to a cloud hosting service for better performance or to update your checkout portal’s security features during an ecommerce website redesign.
• Remodel. A remodel combines redecorating and rewiring to provide significant front- and back-end updates to your website. This type of redesign requires significant investment but makes big changes that will drive noticeable increases in user traffic, conversions, and overall sales.
• Rebuild. A website rebuild is the most intensive form of website redesign, essentially rebuilding your website from the ground up. With all-new graphics, navigation elements, and back-end code as well as the latest SEO optimizations and features, your new website will have everything it needs to drive your business to the top of your industry.

6 Steps to Redesign a Website

Follow these steps to learn how to redesign a website.

1. Evaluate Your Current Site’s Performance

Before you begin dreaming up your new website, you must first give you current website a thorough evaluation. Look at things like its load speeds, responsiveness, usability, and SEO. The results of this investigation will serve as benchmarks to help you develop realistic goals for your redesign.

2. Research Your Competitors’ Websites

You can learn a lot about what works best for your industry by looking at what your competitors are doing. Identify your number one competitor and examine their website closely. What does it look like? What features does it offer? How are its pages organized? Use SEO tools to get a better idea of which keywords they are using and how high they rank for each one. You can also conduct user interviews and session recordings to see what real users think of their website. All of these things and more will help inform the development of your own website.

3. Determine Changes for Your New Website

Use your data and observations to determine your website redesign scope. Which KPIs do you want to improve, and by how much? This will focus your website redesign and give you a goal to aim for. Remember that it is important to make changes gradually so you can observe the effect of each alteration and capitalize on your strongest points.

4. Adopt a Content-First Information Infrastructure

Your website redesign agency will create a clean, streamlined sitemap and layout that supports usability and content discovery above all else. They may use tools like a map of the customer’s journey, a graphic that displays all possible routes that a lead might take on their way to becoming a customer. They should be able to reach your checkout portal quickly and easily from any page. Your agency will also create a sitemap for your website demonstrating how each page links to all the others. This is helpful for understanding your website’s navigation setup and offers SEO advantages too.

5. Create Sketches or Mock-Ups

Your website’s finalized layout will then be converted into a series of mock-ups that offer more detail on how each page looks and functions. Your agency’s UX specialists, graphic designers, and SEO specialists will all work together to create a prototype website that is both attractive and effective at helping you reach your goals.

6. Design Testing and Launch

Your finished website will then be tested for bugs and user experience issues before finally releasing to the public. You can do this using internal testing teams or by initiating a soft launch that releases your website to a limited section of the public.

How Often Should You Redesign Your Website?

There is no one-size-fits all benchmark to indicate when it is time for a website redesign. If you feel that your website is not helping you meet your goals or that it lacks certain features that your competition has included, it may be the right time for a change.

For most businesses, this happens every 2 or 3 years. Keep an eye out for major industry changes and shifts in your own brand’s aesthetics and focus. Your website should always reflect your company’s identity as a confidant, self-assured entity that knows its value and makes that clear to its audience.

Get Your Website Up to Date with Our Expert Web Redesign Services

Website redesigns are complex projects that require a lot of care and attention to successfully pull off. If your website is ready for a tune-up, contact WSI Comandix today. Our website redesign services include Wordpress redesigns, Shopify redesigns, and more, all backed by our industry expertise and our long track record of proven results.