5 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Website Redesign

If your website is in dire need of a facelift, here are 5 questions that you should ask before starting a website redesign.

Starting a website redesign can be a challenging undertaking that you don’t want to get wrong. Given that the website is the digital front façade of your business, you should ensure that it ticks all the boxes. This ensures that it attracts customers, who stay and can then also recommend your business to their associates.

Here are a handful of very important questions every business owner should make sure to ask (and find answers for) before starting a website redesign.

Ask customers “How would our website be more useful to you?”

While you enjoy making the website and would want to add all the cool features you just read in the latest marketing journal, you should consider if they are useful to the customer.

You, therefore, need to have a handle on your target market. Find out what they want out of a website such as yours. What do they think you can improve on the current portal? Can they easily find what they are looking for? Does the site have better and detailed product descriptions?

You should also upload content that the customers find useful. If they find it useful and appealing, they keep coming back and can make purchases online via your website.

Knowing what the customer wants gives you a starting point of what to do moving forward.

Ask yourself “What do our competitors websites do better than us?”

Just like in any other aspect of a business, it pays to check out what your rivals are doing. You need to find out if they are doing it better than you. If so, how can you improve in that aspect?

Make a list of what they are doing well and engage your team to find a way to surpass this so that your site is a better choice for customers.

There is also the question of SEO. You might have better products and services but your website isn’t attracting any customers to it. This is because your competitors have optimised the common search keywords for the site, drawing all the traffic to them.

You, therefore, need to get better at search engine optimisation so that more of that important web traffic comes your way.

Ask your customers ‘What’s one thing you like about our website?”

Before you can go ahead and tinker with the site, doing what you believe is right, you need to find out what your customers like and what they don’t. You might roll out a new site that is beautiful to look at but has removed one of the big customer draws.

For example, you might be fixated on changing the design and appearance of the site. However, this new design might not be as intuitive as the old one, giving your customers a harder time to navigate the website. If they are having difficulties in using your site, your competitors will welcome them with open arms.

In other words, change the things that need changing and leave the aspects of the site that the customers love. The additional positives will draw in even more clients and also encourage the old ones to stay.

Ask your front line team “What questions do you regularly get asked?”

From the previous section, you might be asking yourself how to know what the customers love and what they dislike. As part of top management, you might oblivious to these issues but your frontline team has their finger on the pulse of the customer.

Customers reach out to your support team asking numerous questions about various aspects of your site, seeking assistance. Your support team, therefore, knows the issues that always come up and can let you know what needs to be fixed.

It’s not only your support team that is in contact with your customers. Your receptionists, as well as salespeople, also interact with your clients. This means that they pick up on some information that could be useful in bettering the customer experience online.

Ask yourself “How will I keep the new website regularly updated?”

Before starting a website redesign, you should keep in mind that it doesn’t apply to the look only. The redesign is a great opportunity to also switch it up with your content strategy.

You should sit down with your various department heads and figure out the kind of content that will help them. Will daily news draw in clients? How about videos? Can you make them engaging? Should the site offer longer articles that offer information on industry-wide trends?

As well as coming up with new content, you should also review the old content. Check your older blog posts and ensure that their content is evergreen. If it is out-dated, update it with relevant information that helps the users. You could update the content every month to ensure this.

You should also check out the content that performs best and try to emulate it as often as possible.

In Summary

When the need arises for redesigning your site, you might be overwhelmed by the work ahead. However, this needn’t be the case. Before starting a website redesign, you should ask some questions before proceeding. These will give you a plan to follow.

Ask your customers what would be useful to them going forward. You should also ask yourself what your competition is doing right and close that gap. Before going ahead and dismantling everything, ask your customers what they love about the website so that you can maintain that feature.

Ask your frontline team what they’re asked often to determine the clients’ desires. Finally, ask yourself how to keep the site regularly updated so that your customers always have something fresh to find on the website.