Busy in serving clients, the task of redesigning the company’s own website is pushed back many times. And, this is not one company we are talking about. Most companies go through it. I know a lot of websites are due for a complete overhaul or redesign at least.
If your website redesigning is seriously just a few days or a week away, then you are reading the right checklist at the right time.
The right way to begin redesigning your website
By dealing with clients daily, we all know by now that website designing begins way before the designing stage. Consistency is required throughout the project, but the pre-designing stage dominates as it sets the ground for your project to be a success or not, regardless of whether you are aware of it or not. Give the pre-designing stage the time it needs. You won’t regret it.
Start asking the right questions – They will take you to the right answers
What’s the need for redesigning the website?
- Has Google launched a new update and redesigning will help gain more traffic?
- People are loving the recent web design and any delay caused in implementing the same to your website will be too late for your brand
- You are losing clients because your old website design doesn’t attract the visitors
- Despite the good content and high page speed, the bounce rate is still high
- The old design is complex and not user-friendly
- You are rebranding the company completely
The reasons can go to as many as the minutes in a day – 1440, to be exact, or maybe more. Finding the real reason helps in understanding what you need to do next.
For example: If Google has launched an update, then look for guidelines to follow throughout the redesigning process. Google prefers user-friendly and mobile-friendly designs. It has made mobile-friendly a mandatory point. So, that’s a good start if you haven’t made your website mobile-friendly.
If you plan to turn your regular website into a lead-generating machine, it needs to go through the changes as per inbound methodology. So, you will explore the lead generation design options specifically.
If you are rebranding yourself, then new branding guidelines will be the core of your redesigning task.
Mini website design checklist if you are rebranding your company
The overall new personality of your brand: How and what the first impression of your brand would be like? You can choose to be bold, minimal, energetic, caring, exciting, sincere, or whichever you like.
Navigation: Do you want to offer value in a lesser number of pages, or do you want a separate page even for a sub-service? It’s totally your choice. Both styles work if you keep three things in mind: The website’s aesthetics, target audience, and user-friendliness. It shouldn’t feel clunky and untidy.
Icons and Graphics: Doodles, 2-D characters, beveled edge icon, chamfered edge icon, circular icons, transparent icons, matte colors lots of options to choose from. You will find graphics matching your brand’s new personality. All these are a part of your website redesigning process.
See a few examples below
Icons
The nomenclature: Some choose the service titles same as the keywords to rank their service pages high. Others might go off-the-book to define their service pages.
Note: Regardless of your goal, Google guidelines are must follow because, at the end of the day, you need to promote your website on search engines.
The Target Audience – Buyer Personas
After all, it is the end-user who will access the website to get informed of your products and services. Since you are redesigning your website, keeping buyer personas at the center of the redesigning task will make your website what your target audience would love to visit.
As per HubSpot – A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
Take a step further to learn about buyer personas or building one for your website redesigning task.
A buyer persona looks like this...
HubSpot Guide to Buyer Persona
Your Branding Style Guide
Leverage the website redesigning stage to make a style guide for your brand. Set the tone of the content and graphics. Pitching your brand tone through colors is called color symbolism.
- Red – Action, Passion, Faith, Courage, Sensuality
- White – Purity, Unity, Cleanliness, Minimalism
- Yellow – Happiness, Wisdom, Optimism, Energy
- Green – Life, Nature, Fertility, Refreshing, Harmony
- Blue – Youth, Peace, Sky, Water, Truth
- Black – Stability, Elegance
Your business niche, the target audience, the brand you want to pitch help you decide the color palette for your website. Follow the same color palette in your social media posts designing. It helps your audience remember your brand through a specific color.
I don’t have to paste the logos here or write the color names, but when I just take the brand names, their branding color would pop-up in your head.
Coca Cola, Pepsi, Maggi
You had their brand colors in your head when you read those brand names. When you search for a product in the general store, you quickly scan the shelves for the color of that product. That’s how powerful the colors for brands are.
Auditing the Website for Redesigning
While there are some things you would personally want to redesign, there are always some things you are unaware of but must be done. Auditing your website highlights those areas of your website that need your attention. The audit includes the current code lookup, the SEO health of the website, the internal linking structure, the hierarchy of the website pages, among other things. Address everything in the website redesigning task.
You would need a developer, designer, and an SEO executive to analyze the complete website for areas that need repairing. This will keep your website on top in every aspect once the website redesigning is complete.
Be Open to Inspirations
Inspiration can come from anywhere. Shark’s teeth can inspire a car designer to design the front grill of a car. That’s the beauty of the process. Be open to receiving ideas from the universe. Do not stick to your industry only while exploring. Getting inspiration outside your industry helps build your USP.
Let’s revisit the 5-point checklist for redesigning the website
- Ask the right questions – Why are you Redesigning
- Always Redesign for the Target Audience – Build Buyer Personas if you haven’t
- Follow or create your new branding style guide
- Audit the website before designing to know the areas that need attention
- Be Open to Inspirations
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