For over 20 years now, e-commerce has been inexorably nibbling away at the market share of physical commerce, and this phenomenon has seen an unprecedented acceleration since the year 2020 and its successive confinements. Today, more than ever, it's essential to maintain a strong online presence by offering ergonomic, modern and attractive content. If your site is starting to show signs of obsolescence, it may be time to think about a redesign! But be warned: this is a vast program, involving energy, time and therefore money. Before plunging into the redesign process, it's important to analyze the shortcomings of your current site, define your objectives, structure your project, and know the main pitfalls to avoid. Let us help you with this step!
What is a web redesign?
Redesigning your website is to restyle it to make it more modern, but also more efficient. Depending on the age of your current site, your performance, your objectives and the new features you want, the scope of the redesign may be more or less extensive. It's the analysis of your project that will determine the scope of the redesign. In practice, there are often two types of redesign:
Graphic redesign
The aim is to rework only the "front-end", the part of the site visible to the visitor, in order to modernize the design, content and, if necessary, the tree structure. No major technical modifications will be made.
Graphic and structural redesign, also known as total redesign
The latter involves redesigning graphic elements, text content and, above all, more technical elements such as the CMS (content management system) and the various associated modules, with the aim of better adapting to new web practices.
When and why redesign your website?
Web technologies are constantly evolving, and your site needs to keep up to date to remain relevant. the requirements of the various search engines, as well as those of Internet users. Although we tend to say that redesign becomes a necessity as soon as the first signs of obsolescence appear, it's sometimes difficult to assess the real need to redesign your site. Here, then, are the questions to ask yourself before embarking on the redesign process:
- Does my site perform well? Is it engaging?
- How fast do your pages load?
- Is the design up to date? And does it match the image I want to project of my company?
- Is navigation adapted? Including on mobile?
- Is my site visible on search engines? If so, is it visible on the queries most relevant to my business?
- Is the current CMS the most suitable? Is it easy for my teams to use?
If you've answered no to any of these questions, it's time to think about a redesign.
The 10 key factors for a successful redesign are in the preparation!
Here are the 10 steps to a successful website redesign. If you don't forget any of these points, there's every chance that your redesign will be a success, i.e. that your e-commerce performance will increase, and that you won't feel like changing everything just 6 months after your redesign! Share all this preparatory work with your partner web agency, who will be able to advise you!
1. Audit your site to identify areas for improvement
Analyze available metrics
Many people think of redesign as a very radical change, but it's sometimes a good idea to keep the elements that work, especially the baseline. So, before diving headlong into the exciting stages of designing a new site, it's important to take the temperature of current data in order to create a baseline, but also to set new goals. Here are a few things to analyze:
- Traffic : it's an essential indicator! Look at the volume of users and sessions, and focus on the sources of the latter: organic, paid, social networks, direct, etc...
- Bounce rate : it guarantees the quality of your traffic! Don't forget to check that your traffic isn't slipping away, as this could be the sign of a SEO or tracking problem.
- Conversion rate : Generating traffic is great, but you still need to succeed in converting it. Concentrate on the overall conversion rate, then page by page, and don't hesitate to adjust those with the lowest scores.
- Destination & exit pages : Analyze visitors' entry pages and the keywords associated with them. You should also take an interest in exit pages, and try to correct any elements that might cause visitors to leave.
Many other KPIs deserve special attention, such as average session duration, average number of pages viewed per session, most viewed pages, events and many others.
Measure speed
The speed at which your pages load is a key factor, when you consider that almostone out of every two Internet users leaves a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Slowness is a real killer! Don't hesitate to use the Page Speed Insight tool, which not only measures the speed of your pages, but also offers suggestions for improvement. Mobile speed should not be neglected, quite the contrary, so don't forget to check the score for both desktop and mobile.
Identify technical errors
404 pages, non-indexed pages... technical errors can be many and varied and have a significant impact on your SEO and therefore your performance. Don't hesitate to take note of all these anomalies to ensure that they are perfectly resolved on the new site. Tools such as Google Search Console or even Screaming Frog can help you overcome these problems.
Take stock of your keywords
Start by defining lists of keywords that seem relevant to your business. Then focus on the words you're actually positioned on, by monitoring their relevance via monthly search volume. Then focus on the pages positioned on these keywords, and on the actions you can take to improve their performance.
Monitor your backlinks and domain authority
Google and other search engines value sites with high authority. This domain authority is a score based mainly on the number of inbound links, also known as backlinks. It's not just a question of having lots of them, they also have to be of high quality!
2. Identify your buyers personas
Do you really know your customers? The aim is to know your target group inside out, so that you can fine-tune your marketing strategy, and therefore your message, because very often, "speaking to everyone, speaks to no one!"
To identify your buyer profiles, you'll need to answer a few questions... Are they men? Are they women? How old are they? What are their interests? What are they looking for? What are their expectations? What are their habits? How do they communicate?
3. Analyze your competitors
Now that you've identified your buyer profiles, do you know who your competitors are? You need to identify them, take an interest in the products or services they offer, their prices, their content, the organization of their site (tree structure, page structure and content, graphic charter, ...) but also their SEO ranking. Are they more visible than you? If so, on which queries and why? The aim is obviously not to plagiarize, but to get to know them so as to identify good practices, as well as bad ones. Analyzing your competitors will enable you to determine more precisely the various criteria of your specifications.
4. Define your goals & expectations
Once the audit has been carried out, and your buyers personas and competitors identified, it's time to define your objectives! It's essential to put down on paper the reasons for the redesign and the objectives you wish to achieve. More traffic? Better conversion rates? Optimize UX? Give your design a facelift? Improve customer loyalty? Update technical features? Change CMS? What are your deadlines? What are your requirements? What budget do you want to allocate to the project? Do you want to redesign your site in-house, or use the services of a web agency? Don't hesitate to use the famous SMART method to help you define clear and precise objectives. As a reminder, it's based on 5 adjectives:
- Simple
- Measurable
- Reachable
- Realistic
- Temporal
All this information will then be integrated into specifications. Drawing up this essential document is a key stage in the redesign of your site. It should outline your web project, and include all the elements needed to clarify the expectations, objectives and directions to be taken by your internal and external stakeholders. This often includes :
- Background: presentation of the structure and its activities, competitive advantages, values, contacts...
- Current site conditions : CMS used, domain name management, hosting and maintenance, content management, reasons for redesign, obsolete elements, strong elements to keep...
- Objectives: role of the website and expected results (ideally illustrated with KPIs).
- Tree structure and content : tree structure if it has already been reworked, estimated number of pages, types of content to be integrated (images, videos, text...), details of the elements to be supplied (who and when)...
- Visual identity : who supplies the models, how many proposals are expected, various inspirations, appreciated graphic elements (fonts, colors)...
- Technical features : online sales, forms, CMS requirements, modules and extensions, search engine, blog, SEO modules, technical gateways (stock management, price updates...)
- Deadlines : deadlines for the various stages (layout, integration, acceptance, production launch)
Once you've finalized your specifications, if you'd like to work with a web agency, now's the time to start consulting them.
5. Define your graphic charter
Once you've analyzed the audit, completed the specifications and validated your tree structure, it's time to design the site!
Before diving into the models, start, if you can, with some zonings which will enable you to determine the structure of the pages, indicating the locations of the main blocks and call-to-action elements. First, we focus on the user experience. In concrete terms, this means your page skeletonto which you will then graft the graphics.
Even if some people think that zoning is a waste of time, it will allow you to check that no functionality and/or call to action has been omitted, and that the ergonomics correspond to the established objectives. This first step will then enable you to limit the number of return trips you have to make with the creative teams.
Once the zonings have been validated, it's time to model! Colors, fonts, image types The objective is to define a graphic charter that corresponds to the image you wish to project of your brand, but also, and above all, one that will meet the expectations of your users. Don't forget to take into account the famous color psychology!
6. Write your content
You're probably familiar with Bill Gates' famous phrase: "Content is King! ?
And indeed, if your objectives include improved visibility on search engines, the editorial phase will be crucial! The redesign is the ideal time to rethink your pages, but also to adjust and complement your existing content.
Be careful, however, not to rush headlong into unproductive copywriting. Based on the semantic audit, study the pages that generate traffic, the keywords on which you're looking to gain positions, and write accordingly. Don't hesitate to use tools that will enable you to analyze your SEO optimization and overoptimization score.
7. Take care with your redirection plan
If you don't want to lose the entire repository of your old site, you'll need to redirect your old URLs. A redirection plan is therefore imperative! A crawling tool such as Screaming Frog can be used to scan all your URLs. This list can then be supplemented by extracts from tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console or SEMrush. Once you've finalized your URL file, you can perform an initial sort: URLs you wish to redirect (301), those you wish to delete permanently (410) and those you wish to leave in error (404). Next, you'll need to start mapping the old URLs to the new ones. Beware: poor management of redirects can very quickly cost you dearly!
8. Define a tracking plan
Once you've developed and integrated your site, you'll need to turn your attention to the performance measurement.
In addition to the elements natively provided by tracking tools such as Google Analytics or MatomoYou can decide to measure more advanced or simply more precise information: clicks on this or that button, form filling, scrolling and much more. The tracking plan is a document that lists all the events you'd like to measure. It also specifies when and how to collect them.
9. Run user tests
Before you press the button and put your brand-new site online, remember to check and double-check that everything is working perfectly:
- Test your site on multiple browsers
- Analyze its appearance on various devices desktop, mobile and tablet
- Check your call-to-action buttons, your forms, your orders and feed this information back into your data analysis tools
Don't carry out your tests on your own, but with the help of a fresh pair of eyes. Don't hesitate to ask your friends and family for their opinion, and make a note of anything that might have caused them problems, or that didn't seem to run smoothly.
10. install Looker Studio dashboards
Now that the site is online and the data is being correctly fed into your analysis tools, it's time to exploit this data to check that your site is meeting the objectives of your specifications! And what better way to do this than with Google Data Studio dashboards?
Google Data Studio is a tool for data visualizationan interface for creating reports from data from various sources Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console, but also your e-business data directly from the CMS.
These dashboards are entirely customizable, scalable, accessible online - and the data is available in real time! Our webmarketing teams can help you format these reports to create views that meet your business challenges, and thus facilitate your decision-making.
Choose the right web agency to support your redesign!
Redesign is a crucial stage, and must be meticulously orchestrated if you want to avoid significant business consequences. Don't underestimate the phases of analyzing needs, defining objectives and drawing up specifications, which, if carried out properly, provide a solid foundation for the success of the project.
Done right, a redesign is above all a superb opportunity to propel your business forward: it allows you to give your design a facelift, update your technical functionalities, as well as fine-tune your user experience, content and SEO strategy. For 360° support, call Soledis!
