Do Good Design

Planning to redesign your website? Start here.

Before you rush out and drop a bunch of money, there are 3 steps you can take that will save you a lot of time and money.

Step 1: Define what isn’t working.

Step 2: Make a plan.

Step 3: Shop around.

If you’re like most people, you need to redesign your website NOW, yesterday in fact. The pressure just to get it done is enormous, but if you skip them and just get another site, I guarantee you’ll end up in this same position in a few years or less.

So let’s take just a little bit of extra time to go through these 3 steps I’m going to lay out for you, and then you can get cracking with the fun business of getting a new website.

Step 1: Define what isn’t working

Before you trash your old website, look specifically at what doesn’t work. You’ll know some of this from your own experience: is your website difficult to use? Do you avoid doing it? Write down the problems you’ve had as a website owner so that your designer can give you some solutions.

User testing

Another great way to find out what doesn’t work on your website is to ask someone to sit down and try to do something basic on your website. If you’re a retailer, ask a friend (who doesn’t know your website well) to buy something off of it. Then quietly watch them try to do this. This is called “user testing” and you’ll soon see several problems your new website will need to avoid.

Analytics

A final way to see what’s going wrong with your existing website is to look at your analytics, or software that tells you where visitors to your website go. I use Google Analytics for this, and it tells me which articles are most popular, which pages are ignored, and so on. An invaluable — and free — tool.

Step 2: Make a plan

Your website strategy is like a business plan for your website.

It gets you to focus on what your site needs to do for you, who your target audience is, and what kind of information you will need on your website. It’s the best tool for working with a web designer because it guides them and ensures you get the best possible website.

Don’t hire a web designer who doesn’t use a web strategy — chances are, you’ll end up with something that’s impressive, but doesn’t actually sell your business (I’ve put a link to the Website Strategy document we use with clients at the bottom of this article.)

Step 3: Shop around

When looking for a web designer, have a look at several. Don’t just go by word of mouth, but look at different websites and their work to get an idea of what their values are, how they work, and whether you would want to work with them.

I’ve found relationships with clients are long-term, and my clients become friends. While you may not want such a close relationship, you’ll be doing a lot of communicating with this person and you’ll get a far better website if you’re on the same page.

Those are my 3 top tips for a website redesign. If you’d like to speak to us about working on your own redesign, we’d love to hear from you.

Ready to take action? Why not:

Start working on your own Web Strategy: Download as a Word document or as an Adobe Acrobat pdf file.

Find out more about the our“top-notch” and “business card” website packages.

Contact us to find out how Do Good websites can grow your business.