Every website owner should periodically revisit their website’s design to look for opportunities to improve. Taking on a website redesign project requires a commitment in time and money, which makes it easy to find excuses not to do it. But there are few compelling reasons that are good enough to squash those excuses and move forward with a website redesign.

A business website is a means to present your brand at its finest, for existing and potential customers alike. Hence after a certain period of time, a more encompassing website redesign is required.

What is a website redesign?

A website redesign is a significant change of the code, content, structure, and visuals of your current website to better serve your visitors. A great website redesign tends to boost revenue, lower bounce rates, and improve user experience (UX).

Website redesign vs website refresh

First of all, make sure you’re in the right place. Whether what you’re doing counts as a redesign or refresh depends on how many changes you’re making during the process, and how far-reaching they are:

A redesign usually implies that the code and visual appearance of a website change significantly. For example, a new visual identity and branding are rolled out, pages are restructured UX-wise to incorporate new modules and functionality, the information architecture gets updated, a new CMS (content management system) is introduced—and this all goes live around the same time.

A refresh takes place when the core structure and functionality of the website remain largely untouched and minor changes are applied. For example, the look & feel of the site gets updated with a new color palette and typography, or small UX tweaks are added to individual page templates.

A redesign and a refresh may well be different when it comes to how resource-intensive they are, but they have one crucial thing in common: both of them will significantly impact your customers and their experience of your website.

How Often Should You Redesign Your Website?

The average lifespan for a website is 1.5 to 2.5 years. Because design trends change and technology advances, this is the average amount of time that a redesign will feel “fresh” and competitive. However, that time frame is only a benchmark, so you will need to determine what works best for your organization. 

Also here are the following factors that will determine how often you should redesign your website: 

• How often your brand or goals change. When you’re itching for a new site, first ask yourself, “Does this website still represent who we are as a company?”
• How much budget you allot to design and development. Ask yourself, “Can a site design wait, or do I have reasons to use the budget on our site now?”
• How long your website stays functional and fast. Step into your customers’ shoes and see if you can navigate the site well and find everything you want to find without encountering errors or long page load times.
• The performance of your website. Ask yourself, “Is this site converting a reasonable amount of traffic? Do people stay on the page for a reasonable amount of time, or do they bounce?”
• Changes in the industry. For example, when Google announced that it would be changing to mobile-first indexing, it necessitated that sites be mobile-friendly, or they’d lose organic traffic from Google.

Your website is where visitors and customers go when they want to ask questions, read content, or purchase products or services. For that reason, it’s best to be extra prepared when thinking to redesign your website.

Website redesign checklist

This complete website redesign checklist will walk you through the steps for revamping your site.

1. Determine if it’s the time to redesign your website

A website redesign requires time, planning and strategy on your part, so it’s best to go into it prepared. Before you begin, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the design of my site no longer up-to-date?
• Have I noticed a decrease in sales or conversions?
• Have users complained about the navigation or design?
• Did I recently rebrand my business?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, a website redesign can probably benefit your business greatly.

2. Analyze and research your current website

Before you change anything in your existing website first analyze its performance.

Analyze

Dig into your website analytics to gain a clear understanding of what about your current website is working, and what isn’t. Use Google Analytics to inspect your site’s data. Check to see which of your pages are the most popular, what an average user journey is like on your site, and which CTAs (call-to-action buttons) are getting clicked on.

Note your pain points to work on them when redesigning the website. Also, take equal note of your current strengths too, because not everything on your site has to be completely transformed in the process.

Research the competition

Look closely into the websites of top competitors in your industry. Pay attention to their design, website navigation, content, and any marketing strategies that they employ. Keep an eye out for common industry practices, such as to create a blog or an online store. These insights will help your website redesign rise up to the competition.

Understand your market

Learn more about your users and industry, conduct a market research to clearly define your target audience. Even if you’ve done this before, it’s worth looking into your market and audience once more before redesigning your website as they tend to change over time.

By forming a better understanding of who your customers are, you’ll be able to get a feel for what it is that they like and dislike, or what their online browsing habits are. This will help you tailor your website.

3. Set your goals and create a plan

Before you start working on your website redesign, define what you want to accomplish. Every website will have some main goals, such as making sales or developing an engaged community. In addition, you may have a number of smaller goals that help you achieve your main ones, like increasing traffic or getting people to sign up for your email list.

Write out a list of the main goals your website wants to achieve, and determine the priority levels of each so you know what to focus on in your website redesign. If you’re working with a team, assign roles for individuals in order to keep everyone on track.

4. Define your visual language

Before going into the details it’s important to decide on the look and feel of your website.  Make sure your visual language ties into your overall brand identity, and matches your business’s tone and core values.

To get your ideas look into sources of web design inspiration and the latest web design trends. Try to identify what suits your brand best, and what could benefit your site’s functionality too.

5. Create a sitemap

A sitemap is a list of all the pages on your website and the way they are connected to each other. Getting it right is crucial for your website’s UX or user experience, and in order to achieve easy and intuitive website navigation.

Map out a tree of the different pages on your website, and how users will be able to get from one to the other. Keep in mind important website navigation practices, such as linking your logo to the homepage.

As for the pages themselves, include all of the absolute must-haves, such as a welcoming homepage, an about page, and a contact section, as well as a services or products page. In addition, consider which other pages can add value to your site, such as an online store, a blog, or designated landing pages to encourage conversion.

Wireframes: For a professional approach, take your sitemap a step further by sketching out wireframes of your pages. This tool allows you to determine each page’s structure, meaning the general website layout, and where different elements such as the website menu or buttons will be placed. By marking the page elements as simple lines and boxes, wireframes help you to visualize the user’s flow around the site without getting too deep into its design.

6. Employ best design practices

Here comes the design part of the website redesigning. Be sure to keep your brand identity in mind, as well as the main principles of design. The following tips will help you guide in the right direction:

Hierarchy: This is what leads site visitors to look at each element of your site in order of priority, starting with the most significant piece first. Doing so will prevent the look of clutter and an unnecessary sense of urgency. Size and weight (like a larger and bolder letter size for titles) and element placement (like placing an important CTA button at the very center of the screen) can help you to achieve this.

Contrast: This helps us distinguish between different parts of the design by highlighting their differences. While elements that look alike tend to blend together, elements that are contrasting stand out more. Contrast can be achieved through texture (such as plain versus patterned), brightness (light versus dark) and, the most common one, color. Checking your website’s color contrast is an important web accessibility practice, as you’ll need to ensure that your site is clearly legible (there are many online tools for checking color contrast, such as Contract Checker).

Balance: Each of your pages should be well-balanced. A good way to understand balance is to think of your webpage as a scale, with its elements distributed equally on both sides. There are many ways to go about such even distribution, as balance can be symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radial. Whichever you choose, the resulting look should always feel cohesive, leaving nothing out of place.

Use of imagery: Make sure to use high-quality media features in ways that support your message, such as photographs, icons, or vector art. Your imagery could showcase your product, like food for a restaurant website or your accommodations for a hotel website. A different option is to simply set the right mood, for example, with a soothing photo of plants in a nutrition and wellness website.

Typography: This is the practice of arranging text relating to everything from the choice of font to the letter size and weight. While typography is an artform in itself, there are a few simple rules to guide you through the use of type for your website. Pick one to three fonts (but no more) and use them consistently throughout the site. The paragraph text should be the most easily legible, while the title font can be more on the decorative side, with unique touches like cursive or old-style serifs. This guide for font pairings can help you find more inspiration.

7. Update your site’s content

The most important part of updating your website is freshening up its text. And when it comes to writing your website’s content, it’s paramount that your choice of words provides real value to readers. Keep your target audience in mind it will help you craft text that is less about you and your product and more about your users and their needs. Use written copy to provide an answer to their questions, and offer a helping hand in guiding them through the site.

Additionally, keep your text short and sweet. Sentences that are concise and to-the-point are especially effective in this current age of skim reading and decreasing attention spans.

Tone of voice: Your tone of voice should be consistent and in line with your brand identity. Write the way you’d want your brand to sound, had it been a person.

Microcopy: Another important part of your site’s text is its microcopy. This term refers to the short bits of text on anything from your call-to-action buttons (CTAs) to your online forms. Try to make your microcopy conversational, so that it sounds like there are real-life humans behind it, and not just cold lines of code. For example, a sign up button can go beyond a simple “OK,” and say anything from “Sign Me Up!” to “Let’s Go.”

8. Mind your SEO

This practice improves your site’s visibility and ranking on Google search results, and also boosts your website’s organic traffic. This is also one of the important points in redesigning websites because it enhances it’s discoverability. To help your business found on Google follow these steps:

Use of keywords: Conduct keyword research and choose two to three keywords to describe your business. For on-site optimization, choose a relevant, unique primary keyword for each page of your website, along with a couple of secondary keywords. Work them into the URL, title tag, headings, alt tag, and website copy—but always naturally, don’t try to force them in. These should be used strategically around your website, including your SEO titles and descriptions. Make sure that the keywords fit seamlessly into your content, as recent Google algorithm updates pay special attention to context. Lots of keyword research tools are available to help identify the best keywords for each of your website’s main pages, and many of them are free.

Alt-text: Writing alt-text for images on your website strengthens both its SEO and web accessibility. This is done by adding a few words that describe the content of your image. Your alt-text won’t be visible to your users, but is nonetheless highly beneficial for Google bots and assistive technologies.

Page meta tags: Writing your page’s meta tags – including its title tags and descriptions, helps search engine bots understand the content of your page better, and display it correctly in search results. Whenever possible, it’s best to include keywords in your meta tags.

Domain name: Keeping your domain name consistent over time can help your brand’s recognizability. However, changing your domain name might be necessary if you’ve changed your business name, or expanded the scope of your brand and would like your domain name to reflect that.

9. Optimize the mobile version

When you’re considering your website builder options, take into account whether they offer responsive templates that make creating a mobile friendly website easy. Check how all your design elements look and work on mobile devices. Remove unnecessary elements so that only the most essential content remains, and stands out in the smaller screen. 

On top of improving your user experience, a mobile-friendly website is also beneficial for SEO as it’s a major part of Google’s mobile-first indexing initiative.

10. Review and share

When you are  finally done with all the steps mentioned give your design a review before pushing it live. Find some customers or friends to help you test out your website. Ask them to complete a few main actions on the site, like making a purchase, filling out a form, or navigating to a particular product. Encourage them to do so on different types of devices and in different browsers. And make a note of anything they have trouble with, so you know what changes to make before you go live.

Once your website redesign is ready, give it a marketing boost to support the launch. Sharing your fresh new design on social media and in a newsletter announcement is a good way to drive traffic to your website.

Wrap up

Your new website is ready to go live after completing these steps.  Publish it to the web, but keep a close eye on your website analytics to see how it works.Track specific metrics based on your stated goals to see what’s working, and continue to make small tweaks to the design as you go based on what the data tells you.

Your redesign is a great way to make your website go further and beyond, but when it comes to website maintenance, your work is never entirely done.