What to Consider Before Deciding to Redesign Your Website Every Year

Website redesigning is a risky business. Mostly people refresh the content or change a page or two if needed. Even the web designing experts suggest that the brands must think carefully before redesigning their websites.

The potential reasons to redesign the website are low-performing keywords, outdated content, no updates from time to time, bad navigation and user experience, or all of these together.

Thus, if you have firmly decided to redesign your website, then consider below – mentioned points before going about it:

1. Determine the Perfect Goal

The first and foremost thing you need to do before executing the task of website redesign is to determine the perfect goal. You need to understand what you are expecting when you redesign the website and are able to explain your vision to the people.

If not, time, money, and resources will all be wasted. 

Once the redesigned website is live, you cannot go back to the previous design. It takes ages for a website to rank, and for a redesigned website to rank, it takes eons.

Thus, before deciding to take up this journey, determine what your destination is and what kind of outcome you wish to have on completion of this process. 

2. Check and Analyze the Competitors

While it is not good to obsess over competitors, it is healthy to analyze what they are up to. If they are doing well with their website, there is nothing wrong with learning from them.

Competitors shouldn’t necessarily be people who are in a similar field; you can always take inspiration from websites that are doing well in general. Scrutinize under lens what kind of content they have posted, what pages have been created, if it is an ecommerce website, what elements are present, etc.

Having said that, the brand needs to add USP to the website. Simply copy pasting what competitors have done is not the way to go about it. Otherwise, people will lose interest in your website, and redesign will become a futile attempt to rejuvenate your business.

3. Refresh the Content

Sometimes a website only needs refreshed content and not a complete makeover. In that case, take one page at a time. Changing the content of elements or even color could save you the energy and will not affect the ranking and traffic.

And while deciding to do so, make sure to do the proper keyword research and hire a content writer who will understand the brand's needs and work accordingly.

Refreshing the content might work like a charm if it is written, placed, and designed like a pro. The whole redesigning can be snoozed to later if refreshing the content is needed right now.

4. Data Backup Is a Must

Data Backup is something one doesn’t need to be reminded of Intentionally or unintentionally, we take data backup of everything. Then how can one lag with website data?

It is essential to save the data of pages that have been performing great and even the ones that are not. But what is even more vital is to decide where to keep all the data so that later on, it can be used. There are two ways to store the website data:

• External hard drive
• Cloud Storage

Make sure to save the data to reuse it later because whether you think you don't need data backup or not, it is functional. Even if you have an essential website, simple one page, you need its backup. This is a non-negotiable rule for every website that exists. 

5. The Design Should Be Responsive

As everyone knows and does, websites are opened chiefly on mobile phones. Thus, being responsive is not a luxury anymore. A brand cannot afford to have an outdated website that is not responsive because it won't be just opened on the computers.

People will open it on mobiles, tablets, notebooks, MacBooks, etc. Creating or redesigning a responsive web design is also necessary to increase the conversion rate.

Users coming from mobile sites have better chances of getting converted into a lead than the ones coming from desktops as it doesn't require redirects, and it also provides a seamless user experience.

6. Ponder Over CMS

Lots of content management systems exist in the market, such as Drupal or Sitecore or WordPress, etc. Each has its own pros and cons. Hence, before thinking about redesigning the website, it is crucial to ponder over various CMS platforms.

As website redesigning doesn't happen every day, you do not want your CMS to be outdated and the list of requirements to be a part of a mere wish list. Thus, do thorough research before selecting the correct content management system for your website.

7. Minor Upgrade or Complete Overhaul

This is one of the most critical points to consider before going for a website redesign. While no one is naïve and gullible enough not to understand the difference between a minor upgrade and a complete overhaul, discuss with the people who have been working in this field for ages whether your website needs a little upgrade or not.

Let's suppose you own an oil and gas company; what things do you think you need to take care of? This blog - website design and development for oil and gas companies, suggests everything that is required for a good website for Oil and Gas Company.

If you think one or more elements are missing, then go for a minor upgrade and fix it. But if you think your website is entirely different from what is mentioned here, then go for a complete overhaul.

8. Visitor’s Needs

While this could be a significant reason to redesign the website, understanding your audience is the utmost important task. Times are changing, and one could have every kind of visitor on their website.

Suppose an Ecommerce website will not have a visitor who shops; it will also have visitors who are there to study the website inside out, who are there to research a particular product, who are there to look up their competitors, who are creating the content, etc.

Thus, a website must have something for every visitor. Not a single soul should leave feeling dissatisfied. And while thinking about website redesigning, this should be the most discussed and considered point.

9. Don’t Fix What Doesn’t Need to Be

Why? It’s because you might lose traffic, ranking, users, subscribers, content that was performing well, etc. So if a small website refresh will suffice then better stick to it. 

You should not incur a loss while being greedy about changing the website design and gaining profit. Hence, remember not to fix what doesn't need to be fixed.

Conclusion

To redesign the website, expertise is required. An expert will assist you with content, images, CMS, and everything that needs to be edited. Doing it without having the proper knowledge about website design and development could damage your website and online business even more. Be careful and lean on experts for designing needs.