Thinking about updating your website?
Should you
A) work on updating the content and refresh the style and theme on your existing website, or
B) opt for a total make-over and redesign your website?

There are several considerations to make, as your website plays a very important role in communicating your business and services to both existing and potential customers.

If making your website attractive is a priority read about the top 3 reasons to refresh or redesign a website with Revive Me Web & Marketing.

1) Improve User Experience & Update Brand Promise

To review your website is to take the time to consider what are the most important elements that your audience is looking for.

When you start to review your  “User Experience”, we start to review our web visitor’s experience. Are you presenting the impression of your business point of difference from the others? Is your website simple to use? Is it intuitive for the users to navigate around and find the information that they want? 

Once your  users find the resources that they may be looking for, does your website have the capacity to lead them to do specific actions you want them to take? Like check up online courses available or surveys on your website?
Website redesigning is essential generally once every four to six years, especially when visitors and the audience needs changes and we want to serve their needs and actions online with ease.

This includes ensuring that the website has a pleasing design and colours to the audience it wants to attract.
Well written information and visual content that connects well to your audience. And easy navigation to common services, pricing information,  your process or methodology, quality assurance, the opportunity to give reviews and feedback, and frequently asked questions.

If people are arriving on your website, perusing but not taking an action, then your website structure and content strategy needs to be reviewed.

If you have an existing website with plenty of well-served and read content, but you like to get more online sales , then ensure that you have both outstanding user experience and relevant brand promise.

Note: Quite often, it is easier to set up a new demo website. either as a replica of an existing website to change its structure and theme. Or set up a totally new website with a new theme and rebrand with a whole new brand promise, web structure (also sometimes known as a wireframe), colour scheme,  typography, images and site navigation plan.

2) Remove the outdated content & backend codes

With a website redesign and content management upgrade, you will be able to remove codes that have become outdated and use older server versions that slow down the website’s loading and functioning time. This impacts your SEO rankings by as much as 18% according to Google’s 2020 algorithm rankings.

Upgrading your website and the system can help to increase download speeds.

(Note: If your content management system is subscription-based, for example, Wix, Squarespace, Rocketspark, or Shopify for eCommerce sites then you don’t have to worry about obsolete code).

On the downside, you could be limited by the design of the template and need 3rd party integration or not sure how to get some tools working properly. We can integrate content and look for opportunities i.e plugin booking systems on the website as required.

Since 2017, Google has also suggested that websites use caching and minify (reduce file sizes) CSS and Javascripts. This action will enable your website to load faster.

3) Improve web structure and visibility

The third reason to redesign your website is to strengthen the domain and website security, by improving your web structure. This includes removing any obsolete links, create a mobile-friendly website, as most people are browsing through their smartphones on the go, or use multiple screen sizes and devices.  Improving your website structure would also help with visibility- which also means your search engine ranking position (SERP).

Use a tracking application called Hotjar. Hotjar allows you to record actions of website visitors and be able to see how they currently peruse the site. From Hotjar, we can review actual web visitors behaviour, the clicks throughs and page actions,if the web session resulted in a positive action, or were they deterred and abandon the site as they were not engaged with your website content, or had difficulties or are distracted and abandon the site search.

How Revive Me Web and Marketing Team can help

When we work on a client’s website refresh or redesign, the first part of our process is to review how visitors are using your website.  We start by capturing a recording of visitors with an application called Hotjar (web traffic analyzing application).

We then map out the top content and links that a visitor clicks on while perusing your website. Next, we identify and remove any redundant information, redirect error or missing pages, recategorise services, or remove unnecessary or separate content that could be ‘hurtful’ for your search results.

It is important to note that if your content management system is a subscription-based one like Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify for eCommerce, then you don’t have to worry about obsolete code, but you will be limited by design and delivery customisation and will have to rely on what is available to you. Upgrading your website and system helps to increase download speeds.

If you like to improve your website and turn on your web sales and booking engine, Revive Me Web and Marketing Team can help you refresh or redesign your website.

We can integrate smart applications, research content topics and maintain your website for better rank position and attract traffic (SEO), as well as implement Google Search or Display Ads to attract more high-value and repeat clients.