5 Things You Should Do Before Starting A Website Redesign

If you’re considering a new website redesign, before you do anything, there are a number of important things you need to consider before talking to your web designer or seeking out a design agency.

To save you some time, below, I’ve outlined 5 things you should do before diving into your next website redesign project.

Not everything listed here will be essential to your project, however, by implementing just a few of the tactics, you’ll be more than ready to move forward with your website redesign project.

Let’s take a closer look:

1. Collect user-data

You really shouldn’t even consider starting a website redesign project without first collecting some valuable user-data and insights about your current website users.

If you’re haven’t put in place anything, I’d recommend using a tool like CrazyEgg or HotJar to collect useful information about your users, such as –

1. Click behavior, using heat maps to identify where your visitors are clicking the most on your pages.
2. Scroll behavior, using heat maps to see how far down the pages your visitors are scrolling. Are they drifting past your conversion goal, or even reaching it?
3. Visitor source, time on site and pages, and bounce rate using Google Analytics.

Run your analysis campaigns for at least 6 or more weeks to get accurate user-data insights into how your visitors are really using your current website.

You’ll have much better success with your website redevelopment/redesign using the user-data you have collected as opposed to designing purely based on assumptions and guesswork.

Remember, what you think might be a great design idea or concept, might actually impact your conversion rates, not in a positive way.

2. Identify problems and list possible solutions

Using the data you have collected, along with insights from your analytics and any other feedback you’ve gotten from your website users, make a list of what problems exists on your current website and make another list of possible solutions.

Here are some quick examples of problems you might find –

1. Users clicking on non-interactive elements.
2. Users not reaching your conversion goal through scrolling.
3. Users not visiting more than 1 page.
4. Users abandoning web forms and shopping carts, perhaps due to page load times.
5. Users spending too much time on pages not optimized for conversions.
6. High fall-off pages.

3. List your new website goals and create a building block wishlist

Next, take some time to identify your new website goals. Don’t forget to take into consideration the problems you’ve identified in Step 2 above.

Then, make a wishlist of all the new building blocks you’d like to implement into the website redesign project.

This next part is pretty important:

Make sure everything you’ve placed in your wishlist, aligns with your new website goals.

By doing this, you will not feel the need to add anything unnecessary to your new site redesign project that could have, either a negative impact on user experience (UX) or do nothing at all to improve your conversion goals.

4. Create a customer journey map

Once you have a decent enough understanding of your buyer’s personas, and using the data you’ve collected, and your new website goals, only then you can create a customer journey map to help you visualize your new website, pages, elements, and building blocks, to help you further improve UX and boost your overall conversion.

You’re now ready for the next all-important step!

5. Hire the right designer for the job

Find and hire a designer that will understand your vision and ideas for your new website redesign.

You also want a designer that will be 100% honest with you regarding your design proposal, goals, structure, processes, deliverables, and all the rest of it.

Also remember, you are not trying to achieve the perfect website redesign on your first attempt. In fact, it’s impossible to do this, simply because there is no wrong or right way of creating a first-draft website.

Instead, focus on building a foundation website on which you can continue improving on, even after it has been launched.

Now go for it, and best of luck

Psst! I can help you design and build a website that attracts, engages, and delights your ideal customers. If you want to know more, click this link to get started.