Those were the days when corporates only needed to build a beautiful website with as much information as they wanted. Yet things are not that easy anymore. Today, web design does have strong impact on your conversion rates, sales and overall business performance. As a consequence, more and more companies choose to redesign their website, whether to provide more values to users, become mobile responsive or as a step in their master branding strategy.

However, before you jump in such website revamp wave and make phone call to any design agency, let’s spare some minutes to check out these 5 insider tips. These could be decisive to ensure your successful website redesign project, rather than a failed, time-consuming attempt.

The perfect team for a website redesign project

You don’t have to be alone in this important project. In fact, you shouldn’t! A website redesign would normally affect the whole organisation, so alignment and involvement of different stakeholders are vital to get the best outcomes. This collaboration also gives you support while working with agencies and third parties. Your dream team include:

• A project leader, normally the CEO or C-level executive, who has enough authority to give final approval and sign off major decisions.
• A representative from client-facing departments (e.g. salesperson, customer service staff). Ultimately, they have direct contact with clients and know which deliverables, functions, content are expected.
• Your marketing specialist who would work on daily basis with website content. Their inputs are compulsory in building sufficient website functions for both your internal team and target audience.
• Any technical experts from your company. They have thorough knowledge on the industry, products, services and would quality check your new website content.

Be personal and enforce brand identity

In this digital age, website could be the first and strongest impression one has towards your company. Therefore, do not hesitate to add in your brand identity here and there throughout the new website, so that target audience have clear and correct understanding about your business even before talking to salespeople.

In terms of content, they are the tone of voice and topics you deliver through blog articles, EDM, landing page content. Visually, the brand identity could be expressed through colours, fonts and imagery you use on the website. That is to say, you need to get your brand guideline ready before reaching out to agencies or third parties for website redesign.

Responsive & mobile-first indexing

The biggest issue to shift companies to redesign their website is failure to display and perform in mobile devices, especially when these will account for 63.4% of global internet traffic in 2019. To maximise sales impact from the website, you need to either build an extra mobile version or make sure the redesigned layouts are responsive across all devices.

In addition, a responsive and mobile-friendly website also helps with your SEO goals, judging that Google will aggressively push their mobile-first indexing in the years to come. According to the new algorithm, Google will prioritise mobile version or how well your website performs in mobile devices for indexing and ranking. Remember to make it crystal clear with your agency, so everybody is on the same page about expected outcomes.

Distinct landing pages for SEO & conversion

Previously, websites are static assets that you only need to update once in a while. However, it is not the case anymore. To attract, engage and convert users, you need to build and dedicate additional landing pages for SEO and conversion purposes. Based on your specific marketing and branding strategies, these landing pages could be seasonal or long-term, product-focused or thought leadership, lead generation or keyword ranking.

That’s why right from the first phase of website revamp, share and ask consultation from your agency regarding this content creation intent. They will have clearer vision on what you aim to achieve with your new website and provide backend functions, layouts, sitemap, backlinks… accordingly.

Know what to check

Last but not least, double or even triple check your new website is obligatory if you don’t want to mess up with the agency later. Check it yourself, then have your stakeholder give it a go and get a beta launching among staff for feedback. The workload is huge and challenging, so here are some vital elements you need to focus first:

• all the links and URLs lead to supposed destination pages
• all the forms collect data and send to correct email address
• you have Google Analytics and measuring tools connected
• you are familiar with backend functions and database
• all layouts work well in desktop and mobile devices
• all brand guidelines are met and business information is correct

Website redesign is a large-scale, important and necessary project to take in 2019 to facilitate further business development. Should you look for web layout and design that don’t simply look good but to bring measurable sales impact, then SOY team is eager to have a chat with you regarding this upcoming project.