5 Tips for Redesigning Your Website

Guest post — Miia Kuisma — Miiakuisma.fi

Your company's website is on its last legs and no longer meets today's expectations. Or your company has gone through a rebrand and now the website needs to change too. But what should you keep in mind when redesigning your company's website? Here are five tips for a website redesign.

1. Define your goals

A website redesign is best started by thinking carefully about why the redesign is needed and what isn't working on the current site. Sometimes the reasons are very clear, such as the site not working on mobile, while other times it may be about a rebrand, for example.

Make a list of what currently isn't working, what type of redesign you would like and what things you would want on your new website. At the same time, it is worth considering what is actually needed on the site and how updates will be managed going forward.

A news section, for example, can be unnecessary on a website if in reality it is only updated once or twice a year. On the other hand, if there is enthusiasm within the company for maintaining a blog — whether it consists of text, videos or images — it should absolutely be included.

2. Keep user-friendliness in mind

Quite often the reason behind a website redesign is that the site isn't working as it should. Whether that means it doesn't work on mobile, it's slow or there is some other issue.

When redesigning a website, however, it is good to keep in mind not to swing too far in the other direction. Website user-friendliness is not just about the site working on mobile.

User-friendliness is reflected in clear menus and calls to action, easily readable fonts and the use of colours with sufficient contrast. The most eye-catching or innovative solution is not always the best if the customer doesn't understand how to use it.

3. What your customers are looking for

The customer should be kept at the centre of the website redesign. Consider what information your customers are looking for on the website and make sure it is easy to find.

While it might be tempting to write a long company history on the site, the homepage is certainly not the place for it. The homepage is like the lobby of your website. There, the customer confirms they are in the right place and is then guided to explore the content in more detail.

The homepage should contain the information that customers are looking for, along with navigation to subpages where more detailed information can be found.

4. Get your website images in order

If your website doesn't yet have images taken by a professional photographer, now is a good time to sort that out. Even existing photos are worth updating, because time has likely passed and people and premises look different now.

Although photos can be found in free or paid stock libraries, images taken specifically for your company ensure that the end result matches the desired brand identity. Searching for images in stock libraries usually requires compromises, because finding photos that match your specific industry, brand colour palette and visual style can be very difficult.

While today's smartphones and mirrorless cameras can take good photos, it is worth thinking carefully before taking photos yourself. In the worst case, a new website that you have invested money in ends up looking amateurish because the photographs are unclear or poor quality. A photographer knows how to plan the compositions and angles so that the end result looks professional and polished.

5. Speak to your customer

Don't forget your customer when writing your website content. When a customer comes to your website, they are looking for a solution to their problem, whether that solution is a product or a service. They want to know whether you offer the products or services they are looking for and whether you can truly help them.

That is why it is good to keep the customer in mind at all times when writing content. Are they really interested in everything you would like to put on your website? And on the other hand, does the site contain all the information they want to find?