Website Redesign
an ingenious objective -driven strategy
Website redesign is often taken for as a process of refreshing a site just for the sake of change or making it look more beautiful. The common beliefs that drive this change of look include assumptions like;
- It’s been too long since change
- Our website looks old. Users are tired of it.
- A website redesign will result in more traffic.
Change for what?
While some of these beliefs may be partly true, they do not play a great role in website conversion rate. Remember, search engine does not index graphic and layout and therefore believing a mere change in site look will bring more traffic is a false and misplaced notion.
Ask Experts – no, website redesign should always be objective – driven and not merely based on assumptions.
Ingenious objective -driven strategy
Experts will tell you that website redesign should always be carried out with a clear ingenious objective driven strategy and not merely on the basis of aesthetics. The strategy, according to the experts, involves asking questions such as;
• Are we redesigning the site to help it better align with the company strategic objectives?
• Are we redesigning our site due to market shifts, competition, user needs and action?
• How our website should be adjusted to our current audience?
• Are we implementing latest technology?
• Do we have sufficient data to better understand the market?
• Should we add new sections?
• Is our content fresh and relevant?
• How does our website help in reinforcing our brand position?
Implement the strategy with the Redesign Kit
Questions are no doubt relevant, but how can they be answered?
Wait, the answer is here - use the $ 379 processes of Redesign Kit to justify and implement your redesign strategy. The process includes;
1. Competitive Study:-
The redesign kit will give you a complete data on the performance of other sites which are competing with you.
2. Deep Website Analysis :-
By installing analytical tools in your website, we will help you monitor the website traffic, source, conversion percentage and almost every little detail you need.
3. Live Recording of user’s action through web order :-
By installing a cutting edge technology called web order, we can help you view each and every move of a user surfing your site. You are able to track his move of the mouse from the moment he starts till he leaves.
4. Website Analysis Report : -
The website analysis report that you will be getting through this process includes;
a. User experience
b. Technical report of your website’s performance
c. Search engine optimization report
Here lies the proof
In the recent years, some of world’s top sites like Google, MTV and Amazon have all gone through website redesign and have been benefitted. The key to their successful process of redesign, as stated, has been a well-though out objective-driven strategy. Take a look at these case studies.
Case study no. 1. Google
In September 2005, Google added two small icons for their newly-created Blog Search. These icons were introduced to further assist in results filtering by searching a specific blog, or showing all posts from a particular blog.
The style of the icons was to fit into the overall Blogger site design, where earthy tones and thick, rounded strokes are found throughout. This small change was one of the key factors in helping Google becoming more search-friendly. (Ref- www.simplebits.com)
Case study no. 2 MTV
While going through the redesign during 2007, MTV.com realized that the shiny new version of the site required the latest Flash plug-in. The challenge was however to ensure that the old readers, who hadn’t upgraded to the latest version of Flash would continue to access the site.
These needs were taken into account while the website redesign team created XHTML templates and CSS that powered redesigns of MTV’s various properties.
One of the features which highlighted this process of redesign was that old readers would still receive the site’s content, identical thanks to transforming the same XML that drives the Flash version into nicely formatted XHTML/CSS templates. (ref. - www.simplebits.com)
Realistic Strategy
Talking about strategy, renowned strategist Michael Porter has said in his Harvard Business review article, “the Essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
Looking at a site with the perspective of aesthetics you may feel like bringing a host of changes. These changes may serve some of the purpose but will not result in satisfying the company objective, the user, the web crawler and the search engines.
The website redesign kit is designed with a strategy of eliminations or a strategy what not to do. Using it, you know exactly the amount of change your website needs, where to affect these changes and most importantly for which purpose. An ingenious objective driven strategy indeed!
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