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It’s important to keep your website up to date to ensure your visitors are getting the most accurate information and representation of your brand. If you don’t have a regular update schedule, set aside time to refresh your website design at least once per year.
Getting the most out of the website redesign process is all about coming in with a clear strategy. Here’s how to create a redesigned website that fits your business goals and any changes to your brand.
1. Revisit your website goals
Starting with clear goals is just as important as it was when you plan out a new website design. Go back to the original goals for your website. Have they changed at all?
Plenty of things could have changed since you launched. Ask yourself:
Have you met your initial goals? If you wanted visitors to buy from your ecommerce store, for example, are you happy with the number of people who buy after visiting your site?
Do your old goals still apply? Maybe your business idea pivoted or you accomplished all of your original goals. This is an opportunity to set new benchmarks.
Has your target audience changed? For example, maybe you were focused on event photography but now want to grow your wedding photography client base.
Does your current web design lead visitors where you want them to go? Dig into how visitors move through your site to see if you could make any improvements.
If some or all of your old goals still apply, that doesn’t mean you should leave everything as is. But you don’t have to overhaul your entire website either. You can set more ambitious redesign goals, like more purchases or higher checkout amounts, or focus on any goals you haven’t quite met yet.
Read our guide to setting goals to grow your business
2. Note changes to your branding
Your website is one of the first places potential customers go to learn about you and your business or brand. So your web design should reflect where your brand is as it naturally evolves.
Consider whether your tone has gone through a rebranding or whether there are better ways for you to communicate your brand tone today. Maybe you’ve changed or narrowed the mission of your brand.
Review your website copy, the pages on the website, and its visual elements. Do all of the pieces of your current website reflect any of those changes?
3. Analyze user behavior
Take a close look at your website analytics. Pay special attention to metrics like:
What page visitors enter your website on
Search keywords that send traffic to your website
How many pages people visit on your website
Whether there are any dead-end pages where users get stuck or exit often (high bounce rates or low conversion rates)
Common paths people take as they navigate through your site
Popular pages or products
Squarespace’s analytics panel can show you all of the above. Use this data to figure out if visitors are following the path you want them to take to achieve your website goals.
Look for bottlenecks. Are people regularly getting to a product page and then exiting your site? It’s possible that your pricing is too high or you’re not sharing enough information about the product.
Are the search terms that lead people to your website in line with what you do? If not, it could be worth revisiting your copy to target the audience you want to prioritize.
Learn more about improving your brand touchpoints
4. Finetune the user experience
Some of the places where your website visitors are getting stuck could point to general usability issues. Pinpoint the dead-end pages on your site and take a closer look at potential pain points.
First, try visiting the pages on a mobile device. Is the experience the same as desktop browsing? Can you easily find the information you need and navigate to any next steps? The majority of your website visitors are probably coming to you on a phone or tablet. If seeing product details or navigating your appointment calendar on smaller screens isn’t user-friendly, that could be your issue.
If the mobile experience is working, consider whether your dead-end pages have any accessibility or readability issues. There are some simple accessibility fixes you can make, like adding alt text to any images. That way, that text will show up if the image doesn’t load or if a site visitor uses assistive devices.
Readability is a part of accessibility. If your website copy is hard to read against the background you’ve picked or because of the font you chose, people can’t access the information you’re sharing. See whether readability is an issue on any of your website pages.
It can be helpful to get other opinions on potential website performance issues. Ask friends or family members to test out your website and share their honest feedback about its functionality.
5. Clarify the user journey
Go back to your updated goals and user behavior metrics. Are users following the journey you initially set up for them? Is your current set of web pages, copy, and calls-to-action set up to help visitors fulfill your latest goals?
If the answer to the above is no, try doing this exercise.
Focus on one of your goals at a time.
Identify the information someone would need to follow through on this goal.
What pages or page sections do you need to share that information?
Sketch out the user journey from the landing page of your website to the goal.
For example, say you want more website visitors to sign up for your newsletter. To accomplish that, a new visitor to your website might want to know:
What your newsletter is about
How often you send your newsletter
What your writing style is like
Any benefits they get from signing up
How to sign up to get newsletters
You could then plan to create a pop-up on your homepage with a form to sign-up for emails. Before the space to enter their email address, you could add copy that says something like, “Want to stay up to date on our latest news and releases, and get early access to special events? Sign up for our monthly newsletter.”
Then add a similar callout and sign-up spot to the bottom of popular pages on your website. In this case, you wouldn’t even need to add new pages to your site to draw in visitors.
6. Make a design plan
Finally, take stock of your visual design.
Does your logo need to be updated?
Does the color palette and imagery still match your brand?
Do you have new branding elements or images you can add?
Does the visual design support the goals you laid out above?
Consider your typefaces and the way copy is organized on each page. Does your current set of design elements support your new goals and current brand?
If these elements need a refresh to meet your goals, you need to update them across your website. This will ensure that the look and feel are consistent, even if you’re making major changes.
See our 10 essential principles of design
7. Test and repeat
There’s no one-size-fits-all web design strategy. Your brand or business and its needs are unique, and it can take time and testing to figure out what works best for you.
Once you’ve launched your new design, step back and observe. Some changes take time to settle, so track metrics for at least a few months. After a testing period, take stock of what’s working and what isn’t.
Revisit the checklist above and make adjustments as needed. It’ll help you stay organized about your goals and make it easier to make design choices every time you take on a website redesign project. As you become more familiar with the design process, consider joining other design enthusiasts and professionals in our Circle community.