When to Redesign Your Website With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Your website redesign project plan starts here! If you’re a small business owner, you know you need a website. Your customers are used to finding things online, and without a functional website, you’re potentially missing out on a lot of business. If you don’t have a business website, consider investing in one ASAP – your customers will thank you!

However, if you have an existing website, you’re not necessarily out of the woods yet. Having an older website is better than not having one at all, but websites aren’t static creations that you can “set and forget.” They’re living, breathing organisms that require upkeep and occasionally need to be redesigned. If your website was built a few years ago, it might be time to consider tweaking a few elements for better performance.

You may have some questions about this process. What is a website redesign? How do you know it’s time to redesign your website? How much does it cost to redesign a website? The JSL Marketing & Web Design team has answers to these common questions about website redesign!

Why Do I Need a Website Redesign?

Website redesigns are necessary because the Internet is a rapidly changing place. What worked a few years ago is likely not best practice for web design currently, due to changes in how Google ranks content, customer preference, and industry-specific trends. If your website is a car, think of a redesign as painting and buffing the body, adding new brakes and an engine filter, and changing out turn signals and headlights. The main body and systems of the car are still intact, but you’ve upgraded several components of the vehicle for better performance.

A web redesign is simply taking certain elements of your website and upgrading them accordingly to improve performance. This could involve changing elements of all the following.

• Website Branding & Visual Elements
• UX Design
• Website Templates
• Website Content
• Content Management System
• Linking Strategy
• Page Images
• SSL Certificates
• Schema Mark-Up
• Website Headers, Meta Descriptions, and Tag lines.
• And More!

When is it Time to Redesign Your Website?

As a rule of thumb, you probably need to freshen up elements of your website every three years, at the very least. Some experts even recommend a website redesign every 1.5 years.

However, if you start to experience any of the following, it’s time to consider a more comprehensive website redesign.

• Your Website Sales and Conversions are Declining. You’ve noticed this problem and are actively trying to remedy it by adjusting your website’s copy, promoting the site better on social media and through email marketing, and trying out new offers and sales on the site. However, none of this is really making much of a difference. This suggests that the problem is the website itself.
• Your Site’s Bounce Rate is Climbing. Your bounce rate is the measure of what percentage of users leave your website within seconds of arriving after only visiting one page. The higher the bounce rate, the worse the performance. Let’s say you own a sports store and are seeing fewer and fewer ecommerce sales. You’ve experimented with different copy, product imagery, and offers, but to no avail. You decide to use Google Ad campaigns to drive higher sales. After a month, you return to evaluate performance and see that the number of new website visitors has spiked, but so has your bounce rate. Even worse, your sales are not climbing at all. If you see the number of users on your site rise, but the vast majority leave quickly, it’s likely your site is not user-friendly or aesthetically pleasing. A site with a poor user experience will result in users leaving quickly, which suggests you probably need a redesign.
• Your Customers Do Not Like the Site. Listen to your front-line customer service employees. If customers are constantly telling your customer service reps that your site is a nightmare, it’s probably time for a redesign. Disgruntled website users are likely to leave a poorly designed website, which tells Google that your website is not user-friendly, thus damaging your website’s ranking. If you’re hearing from your reps that your customers don’t like the site, listen to them. If you don’t have a dedicated customer service or client success team, use customer surveys, either paper or through email, to gather feedback. If you find your customers hate your website, it’s probably time to redesign.
• Your Site Just Feels Off. This isn’t the most scientific approach, but if you look at your website and feel it looks a bit dated, chances are your website’s users have thought the same thing. It’s hard to quantify, but we have all seen sites that just look clunky, ugly, and old. Use Google Analytics to gut-check your self, but if your website isn’t user-friendly, isn’t generating conversions, isn’t keeping users engaged, and isn’t being found by new users, your instincts are likely correct.

How Much Will It Cost to Redesign A Website?

This will vary a lot from website to website. No two sites are the same, and no two sites underperform in the same way. However, the cost of a website redesign project depends on how much needs to be redesigned on the site. Rewriting old copy and adding new images will cost less than redesigning templates, adjusting off-page SEO, and completely overhauling the color scheme and branding. Sometimes, the entire structure of the website is so outdated that it might make more sense to scrap the entire website and build a new one. Feel free to connect with our team to discuss your specific example. Once we’ve had time to audit and evaluate, we can offer you tailor-made solutions to help you get to where you need to be.

How to Redesign Your Website

To begin, you will need to have some understanding of the following.

• Current performance benchmarks and long-term performance goals.
• Optimal brand messaging and tone for your site’s content.
• Your site’s competitors and their value propositions, offers, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Your overall goal for your redesigned website.

These can be difficult for a small business owner to define, measure, track, and implement correctly. Luckily, the JSL Marketing & Web Design team has years of web design experience to help make your next redesign project a success. We’ll walk alongside you throughout the quoting, planning, and implementation processes of your redesign project to help you produce a beautiful, navigable, mobile-friendly, and search-engine-optimized website.

The redesign process is also the perfect time to evaluate other aspects of your digital marketing strategy. If you’re putting your branding, messaging, and value propositions under the knife while planning your redesign, it’s a great time to do the same to your other marketing tactics. Remember, your website is just one key component in your comprehensive marketing strategy. The world’s best website will underperform if not promoted aggressively and correctly through pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, and social media marketing.

We might suggest any of the following to help promote your website.

• Content Marketing: Words aren’t just for SEO. They’re for piquing your customer’s interest! Use content marketing to create blogs about the questions your users are asking Google and BING. Compelling writing will not only boost your site’s traffic; it also helps drive sales.
• Social Media Marketing: Your social media profiles are the perfect place to promote your website’s content! Share interesting blogs, good sales, and information about the business from your site directly to your followers.
• Branding & Photography: Prettier sites perform better. This is a basic element of website design. Your site users are likely to leave your site unimpressed if you don’t have an appealing color scheme and impressive photos. They also might be confused as to who you are if you don’t have a logo or if the logo you do have is forgettable. Head off those problems at the pass by ensuring the logo and photos on your website are top tier.
• Videography: Videos are a great way to not only answer complex questions and convey information but also to keep users’ attention. Branded and impactful videos have been shown time and time again to boost SEO. Our team has years of experience writing, planning, directing, and editing video shoots and would be happy to help your business tell your story through videography.
• Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Is there a website page you need users to find? Pay-per-click advertising, through platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, is a great way to drive traffic to the specific pages you need people to see! PPC Advertising is cost-effective and highly targeted, which means you can drive the right customers to your website without investing a Fortune 500-level budget.

Call JSL Marketing & Web Design at 877-514-0276 to start your next web design project today! We have years of experience designing and redesigning amazing websites for small businesses around the country. Follow the link to see some of our work!