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Is it time to completely redesign your website?

This week’s blog post covers website redesigns. It’s aimed at those businesses that already have a website, but have been questioning whether it’s time to completely rebuild and redesign.

What’s covered:

  • 5 signs it’s time to completely rebuild and redesign your website.
  • What questions to ask when planning a website redesign.
  • What happens when you work with me on a website redesign for your business.

Let’s jump in…

5 signs it’s time to completely rebuild and redesign your website

Your business has grown and evolved since those early days and years, but does your current website reflect what it has become? Or is it a stagnant place you don’t really like anymore because it’s a poor reflection of your brand?

Here are 5 signs it’s time for a complete redesign:

  1. Your website was designed ages ago and it is not mobile responsive. There’s a good chance that half (and probably even more) of the people who visit your website are doing so from their mobile phones. So if your website doesn’t adjust for small screens, then you are losing out to a lot of potential customers or clients.
  2. You cringe when someone asks for your website address. Your website is old, badly designed and detracts from what your brand has become. You are ashamed to send people to it.
  3. Your website is impossible to edit or update. You have to ask your web developer to help every time you want to make one small change. You’d love a website that you can easily edit and update yourself.
  4. Your website is really slow and doesn’t work properly anymore. Over the years you have let things slide. Your site has gotten bigger and more cluttered. It just doesn’t make sense anymore and you want a fresh start.
  5. You have recently rebranded. A rebrand is a perfect time to revamp your website.

What questions to ask when planning a website redesign

You have decided to completely rebuild and redesign your website. The next step you should take is to answer these 5 questions:

1-What is wrong with my existing website? Get clear on what’s not working because you want to make sure these issues are addressed with your new website. You also need to be able to clearly communicate the problems to your web designer so they can best help you find solutions.

2-What do you want to achieve with the new website? Define these as goals, which will guide the entire project. Some example goals:

  • Provide a great user experience for my website’s mobile users;
  • Increase conversion and add to basket rates on my new online store;
  • Clarify my brand positioning and messaging;
  • Create a website that appeals to my ideal clients;
  • Get more organic traffic to my website;
  • Automate my lead generation process;
  • Grow my subscriber list.

3-How are you are going to measure these goals? You need to define ways to measure each goal (otherwise, how will you know whether it’s a success or not). Some goals are naturally harder to measure (like clarifying your message). You’d see success from this via an increase in sales and inquiries from customers/clients that match your ideal buyer personas. Some goals are more tangible to measure using free tools like Google Analytics and your email marketing tool.

4-What sort of actions you want people to take on your website? These are often aligned with the goals you set, but it’s important to define them. Actions can be things like: fill in an inquiry form; sign up to mailing list; purchase a product.

5-Who are you building this new website for? Yes, of course it’s to help your business. But you need to get crystal clear on who your products or services are for by creating 3 – 4 customer / client personas.

One of the biggest mistakes I see small business owners making is thinking their products or services are for everyone. This thinking leads to a generic, boring, forgettable website (which is often the case with DIYed first-time websites) and marketing. If you want to achieve success with your website, you really need to get clear on who you serve, and how your services or products help them.

What happens when you work with me on a website redesign for your business

I really enjoy working on website redesign projects. The client usually comes to me because they are unhappy with their existing site. So it’s super rewarding to help them transform their online space into something beautiful and strategic that they love and are excited to share with the world.

I have worked with many growing businesses that need a website redesign, and most of them struggle with:

1-Clarity / lack of focus – they battle to distinguish themselves and have not created clear + focused messaging on their websites.

2-Not knowing what to put on their website (the result being a very generic sounding first time website).

3-Not knowing how to use their website as a business growth tool ( their first time website looks pretty / professional, but is a stagnant space and doesn’t live up to its potential).

So the core focus of my website revamp service is to:

  • Deep dive how the new website can meaningfully help the client’s business (plus tactics for how exactly we are going to achieve this).
  • Helping the client decide on exactly what content, pages, features and call to actions the website needs in order to achieve goals.
  • Helping the client clarify their messaging and distinguish their brand (I offer a website copywriting service to assist with this).
  • Helping the client understand how they can continue to grow their website after launch.

Website redesigns are challenging. But they are such an amazing opportunity to create a new website that performs as a business growth tool. Here’s what one of my clients had to say after working with me:

“After 24 years in business and numerous websites, we finally have a website that is really working for us, reflects our business and we are proud of. Megan took the time to really understand the business’ vision and values and has captured this perfectly… Despite our industry (international tourism) being one of the hardest hit by COVID-19, within a month of launching the new website we had our first big sale. The feedback from our current and new clients as well as business partners has been fantastic.”

Hi - I'm Megan Hodson

I’m a Shopify + WordPress web designer with 16+ years communications, marketing and digital design experience, including working in eCommerce since 2010.

Our studio collaborates with brave-hearted small businesses around the world, helping them create beautifully-functional websites that convert.

We specialise in:

Shopify Stores: We help you plan and design stunning, user-friendly online shops that are easy to manage and scale alongside your business. Learn more.

Website Transformations: Is your website feeling outdated? We’ll work with you to create a fresh, modern space that reflects your brand and delivers a seamless user experience. Learn more.

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