Is my website obsolete? When should I move on? Is it the right time to redesign? These are just some of the questions we face as publishers, and they're vital ones to ask.
Changing your website is an important step in the life of an association or company, and you need to move forward methodically.
Your website should reflect your image, and it's important to take care of it and maintain it throughout its lifecycle, so that visitors have the best possible experience. It must also enable them to find you, thanks to optimized search engine optimization. Organizing the redesign of a website needs to be well thought out, because you can put too much into it, or on the contrary, fail to allocate sufficient resources. An audit is the first step before taking the plunge.
Trends show that a website can become obsolete between 3 and 5 years, but it's quite possible to go beyond that, as there's no associated expiration date.
On the other hand, certain indicators can help us see if it's time to "turn the page"...
What does it mean to redesign your website?
There are 2 types of redesign: structural structural and visual redesign.
The 2 are not dependent on each other, and it is possible to organize a structural redesign without doing a visual redesign, and vice versa.
- The structural redesign concerns everything to do with functionality, site structure (tree structure) and the technology used to build the site (CMS...).
- The visual redesign concerns everything to do with the graphic charter and web design improvements.
Your choice of redesign should be based on your needs and, above all, your budget, as costs will vary from one website to another.
The audit will enable us to define priorities and draw up a precise costing.
What indicators should be checked to organize change?
The main indicators that determine whether a redesign should be organized are the state of the website (readability, behavior on different media types, access, performance such as loading speed), functionalities and technical and organizational purposes.
The most important indicator is the one linked to your needs and the possibility of doing everything I want on my website. This can be related to layout or functionality. If you're stuck on several levels, it's time to consider a redesign to better adapt your website to your needs.
If your site was designed several years ago, you need to make sure it's responsive. If it isn't, this should be a major reason for a redesign. Adaptability across all media (computers, smartphones and tablets) is essential in today's multi-media age.
If your design is outdated and too far removed from current trends, then it's time to think about redesigning it, because the site reflects your image and can be a key factor in terms of strategy and positioning.
If you analyze a significant drop in traffic, this may be linked to the attractiveness of your website, and the drop may be linked to having a tool that is no longer adapted.
If technical optimization is no longer possible, such as loading time or code caching, then an audit is necessary to improve this. Numerous bugs linked to the obsolescence of certain technologies (CMS or other) can also shed light on the organization of the redesign.
How do I organize my redesign?
To organize your redesign, start by discussing it internally, by having your employees and some external people test the current website to get an overall opinion of the current state.
Once this has been done, contact an agency to organize a detailed audit of the tool. A benchmark can also be carried out to analyze current market trends. Once the audit has been carried out, you'll need to provide precise specifications. These specifications will be used by the developer to produce your new website, and also to estimate the budget for your new website.
How do I organize my redesign?
Redesigning your website is the key to achieving certain results and adapting to a market with ever-changing trends. A website is a very important communication tool, providing a direct link between your business and your target audience. It can therefore be a significant competitive advantage in your strategy.
The redesign of the website should therefore meet the following objectives:
- Have an attractive design that reflects your business: your graphic charter may have evolved between the creation of your website and the audit that led to the redesign. It will therefore be necessary to adapt this charter to the web product and maintain visual consistency across all communication tools/media.
The visual aspect must be at the heart of the user experience, and must make users want to navigate and find information. - Optimizing search engine optimization (SEO) should be one of the top priorities when redesigning a website, and should not be neglected (see article on search engine optimization)
- Optimize content by sorting articles, pages and photos. Analytical analysis is an important criterion for seeing what is seen and what is obsolete in the reading of your website. It is therefore essential to organize a meeting with the editorial teams to prioritize the different types of information present on the website.
- The redesign should result in more visits to your site and a lower bounce rate, i.e. more traffic that doesn't abandon the visit after viewing just one page.
Redesigning is therefore an important part of your communications strategy, and all these keys can help you determine your objectives and organize the change.
Colloquium can help you manage your web tools, audit your website and guide you in redesigning your tools.
