The website redesign can pursue several objectives: change
of design, integration of new features, improvement of its referencing,
reduction of loading time, an adaptation necessary to changes in the web, etc.
Whatever your objectives, the website redesign project must be well prepared
and defined upstream. A poorly thought out overhaul can have very negative
consequences a posteriori.
1 / Clearly define and prioritize the objectives of the overhaul from the
start
The first thing to do when considering redesigning your
website is to clearly define your objectives. You have to start by asking
yourself the right questions: why work on redesigning my website? To increase
my conversion rate? To refresh a design that has aged badly? To add new
features? To adapt your site to the web's rapid evolutions (integrate
Responsive Design, for example)? To improve the loading speed of your website?
To rethink the global tree structure? To optimize SEO and adapt to changes in
Google's algorithm? To increase the interactivity of my site? To give more
space to the content? To simplify the back office and use a more flexible CMS?
To improve ergonomics and user experience? To adapt my site to the new image I
want to give of my company or changes in my company's activity? To meet the
expectations expressed by my customers or Internet users?
The redesign is a holistic process (which is why the redesign
is more than just a makeover) that often pursues multiple goals. Please list
all of your goals, making sure to prioritize them. This will be used to write
the specifications (see below). We must insist here on an essential point: a
poorly-thought-out overhaul, done in a hurry, without prior reflection can have
catastrophic consequences or, in any case, negative. Remember to study
carefully if the redesign of your site is compatible or relevant to your
economic objectives. The redesign is not always justified. The benefits of the
overhaul must be weighed against the costs that this will necessarily generate.
2 / Take advantage of the redesign to adopt best web practices
You can take advantage of the redesign of your website to
adopt some general good practices. Here are a few :
Choose a Responsive Design theme: mobile browsing is
becoming more and more important. It has surpassed desktop browsing in volume
since last year. Therefore, your site must be displayed correctly on mobile
devices (smartphones and tablets), especially since Google considers the
mobile-friendly nature of websites in SEO. Take advantage of the redesign to
change the theme and choose a Responsive-Design, that is to say, a theme that
automatically adapts to the size of the screens.
Use the Google tag manager: Tag Manager (GTM). Today, Google Analytics is essential
to obtain and analyze the statistics of its website. Other very useful
marketing tools and solutions can be used (for A / B Testing or emailing automation).
But this often requires the integration of JavaScript tags on your pages.
Google Tag Manager simplifies the management of these tags.
Use a sprite for images: this is a technique that allows you
to group several images into one. This technique's advantage is to reduce the
weight of your pages' dynamic elements, and therefore the site's loading time.
The implementation of these good practices assumes in-depth
technical knowledge. Hence the importance of choosing the right provider, as we
will see below.
3 / Perform a complete audit of your site
Before defining where you want to go, you have to know where
you come from. Doing a full audit of your website allows you to know where you
are starting to define the overhaul's objectives. The audit is, therefore,
chronologically the work to be carried out first. We can distinguish two types
of audits: SEO audits and global audits.
SEO audit of your website
We have already published a complete article on the
methodology to follow to maintain your SEO positions during your site's
redesign. We insisted on the importance of the SEO audit. When we think of
redesigning a website, we think of two main elements: design and ergonomics. These
aspects are major. But we must not forget about SEO. A poorly referenced site
in the search engines deprives a good part of its potential traffic. The
SEO-SEO aspect should be an integral part of your thinking about the redesign.
And above all: everything must be done to minimize the short-term negative
impact of the overhaul on your positions in the search engines. A bad migration
can have harmful effects on your SEO. The big problems encountered by some
people during the redesign of their website, mainly concern SEO. In particular,
you will need to use 301 redirects to properly redirect your old pages to the
new URLs. But it is also important to get SEO services
in Lahore for audit to analyze :
The content of your pages.
The redesign of a website is an ideal opportunity to review
your SEO strategy to improve it, even if this is not always the initial redesign's
initial objective.
The overall audit of your website
For the "global" audit, Google Analytics will be
your best ally. Before starting the redesign, you must analyze all your metrics
and indicators concerning your website traffic: bounce rate, conversion rate
(which are the pages that convert the better, which call-to-actions are the
most effective?), number of pages per session, "flagship" pages
(which generate the most traffic), visitor identity (who are they?), traffic
levers ( organic traffic, referral: how do visitors get to my current site?),
navigation paths used (conversion tunnels). This analysis will allow you to
become aware of the positive points and the points for your website's
improvement. For example, if you find that 60% of your visitors access your
site from a mobile, it seems obvious that you will need to use a Responsive
Design theme on your new site (if you haven't already). The overall performance
analysis of your website before the redesign will help you define the
priorities, the areas for improvement of your conversion funnel, as well as the
pages that need to be further highlighted. Take the time to read this article
on the keys to web auditing to get an idea of your case's ideal scope.
Tip: if your website traffic is irregular and varies
depending on the season, for example, consider redesigning during "off-peak"
periods. Another tip: consider visiting a competitor's sites to find relevant
ideas.
If your website has an internal search engine, analyze the
keywords that stand out the best. This can give you an indication of what your
customers or prospects expect from your website. In general, you must always
think of putting yourself in Internet users' shoes to think about improvements
to your site.
4 / Write a specification
Here again, we refer you to an article that we had devoted
to drafting the specifications for its website. The role of the specifications
(or brief) is major: it is the document that will serve as the basis for
discussions with your service providers and for monitoring their work. It also
has legal value and may be opposed to your service provider in the event of a
conflict. To write precise specifications, you must already have identified the
objectives and expectations of your overhaul. We must find in the
specifications:
A general presentation of your company, its activity, its
economic objectives, its projects, etc.
Your redesign project's general presentation explains
precisely to your service provider what you are looking for through the
redesign. The presentation of your project must be linked to the presentation
of your company. It is about explaining how this web project fits into the more
general framework of your activity in your company's overall strategy.
A schedule that indicates your time requirements. Remember
to remember what you expect from your service provider: meeting deadlines, ease
of exchanges (weekly meeting, for example), degree of involvement in the
production project, training in the new tools used, etc.
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