Jackie Pfriender — May 17, 2019 — May 17, 2019
When a prospect says, “I need a new website,” I often encourage them to take a step back and get to the “why.” A website redesign doesn’t solve for every business need. And we aren’t going to build you a new site if you don’t need it. That’s a waste of your money. With integrity as a major part of our core values, we just won’t do that.
Most of the time, when someone thinks they need a new website or website redesign, it’s either because the site is getting old or they’ve seen some beautiful site that looks really cool. But that’s not the right reason to launch into a website redesign.
Essentially there are two reasons why your website’s not working for you and actually needs to be redesigned. It’s either user experience or a lack of conversion optimization.
Why Your Website isn’t Working
Let’s start with user experience. This is where you might be dreaming of a modern site built with huge hero images, video in the header, easy-to-use navigation, and other modern amenities. Maybe your site looks 100 years old and you’d benefit from a refresh. But that doesn’t mean it needs a complete overhaul.
Making smaller changes to the design, like a hero image, cleaner navigation, new images, and all that jazz, could go a long way to giving your site a new feel. And you wouldn’t have to blow everything up and start over.
What about conversion optimization? Your website may simply still be a brochure you put online with no way for viewers to convert. We’d want to start with simple suggestions like calls to action (CTAs) that offer viewers ways to “buy now,” sign up for updates, download helpful content or connect in some other meaningful way.
I’ve found that adding landing pages and a pricing page goes a long way. We can even look at what a new homepage would do, but changing the entire website and all its branding, colors, copy and the sitemap may not be the best investment.
If you’re mostly happy with the overall feel of your website and the user experience on the other pages is acceptable, then we might suggest using the colors in your existing branding and content. Then, we can freshen up enough pieces that aren’t optimized. (Like that pricing page you read about earlier.)
But that doesn’t mean we need to change the color or change the font or change the overall visual experience. A website redesign is a much larger undertaking than simple changes that can help to drive more revenue.
What You Can do About an Ineffective Website
If you’re looking to drive more revenue with your website, you’d probably consider working with us on a monthly basis to strategize, plan, execute and iterate strategy. Then, down the line, you may end up looking at a website redesign as business picks up.
A website overhaul with a totally new design is usually a large up-front expense and a big commitment of time and resources (from your team and ours). Small optimization changes including calls to action, a better blog layout, a strategic pricing page and similar changes to help drive more traffic can be made over time, as needed.
When a conversation starts with, “My website sucks,” we try to understand the underlying issue. Then, we work on fixing that (and not always by redesigning your website).
Still Want a New Website? Start by Asking These Questions
- Do we want more leads?
- Do we want content?
- Is the website a lead-generation machine?
- Why do we want a new design?
- Do we know how our clients find us?
Frustrated guy photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
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