In today's digital landscape, a company's website is often the first impression and virtual storefront. An outdated, cluttered, or slow-loading website can turn away customers and hurt your brand. However, completely redesigning a website is also risky, complex, and disruptive if not done strategically.
That's why reactive, knee-jerk website redesigns tend to fail. They are rushed without clear goals, lack planning, and end up creating more problems than they solve.
The smarter approach is to undertake website redesigns proactively and strategically. This involves:
- Carefully evaluating your current website to identify areas for improvement
- Setting clear goals aligned with business objectives and audience needs
- Planning the technical and content migration details
- Following structured best practices during execution
- Monitoring issues post-launch and optimizing iteratively
The benefits of a successful strategic website redesign include:
- Improved user experience, navigation, and conversions
- Faster load times, responsive mobile design
- Updated visual brand identity and design
- Content and functionality aligned to audience preferences
- Better search engine optimization and discoverability
This guide will take you through a structured strategic approach to website redesigns and content migration. Follow these best practices for maximizing benefits and minimizing risks during your next website refresh.
The first step is to objectively evaluate your current website to identify areas for improvement. Analyze:
- Design - visual aesthetics, branding, layout
- Content - quality, relevance, keyword targeting
- Functionality - site navigation, calls-to-action, forms
- Speed & Performance - page load times, mobile optimization
- Analytics - bounce rates, conversions, traffic sources
- SEO - metadata, site structure, backlinks
Also review user feedback and support tickets to spot pain points. Look for common complaints around confusing navigation, lack of key information, visual issues, etc.
The goal is to make a list of strengths to retain as well as weaknesses and areas for improvement during the redesign. This evaluation sets the direction for the next steps.
Once current website issues are clear, the next phase is setting goals and requirements for the redesign aligned to business objectives and audience needs.
Key elements to define include:
- Primary business goals - e.g. increase conversions, generate leads, improve brand awareness
- Target audience personas and preferences
- Site content and functionality requirements
- Technical requirements - e.g. integrating with CRM, analytics, marketing automation
- Design elements - color schemes, branding, aesthetics
- Content strategy and migration plan
- Maintenance and governance processes post-launch
Also realistically estimate budgets, resources, and timelines required for the project. Get stakeholder sign-off on the plan before proceeding.
Migrating existing content to a redesigned website requires careful planning:
First, audit and analyze current content. Prune redundant, outdated, or irrelevant pages. Consolidate content spread across multiple pages. Identify content gaps.
Create a spreadsheet mapping old URLs to new proposed URLs. Include redirects to avoid broken links.
Optimize content for SEO during migration - improve page titles and meta descriptions, add alt text to images, update headings and keywords. Create fresh content where needed.
Plan redirects from old URLs to new ones using 301 redirects to preserve link equity. Use responsive design and optimize content for mobile.
During the website redesign and migration rollout:
- Work on a staging copy and keep old site live till ready to switch over
- Do extensive testing prior to launch - functionality, browser/device compatibility, speed, etc.
- Monitor post-launch and fix any issues like broken pages or links promptly
- Update marketing collateral, external links with new URLs
- Submit updated sitemaps to search engines
- 301 redirect all old URLs to new or relevant pages
- Gradually add new content and features post-launch
Strategic proactive website redesigns deliver significantly more benefits compared to reactive redesigns. Evaluating your current site, setting clear goals, migrating content methodically, and meticulously testing and monitoring during launch is key. This structured approach results in an effective website refresh that drives business growth while minimizing disruptions. With robust planning and execution, your next website redesign will exceed expectations.
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