There’s no question that having a website is important for any small business.
But what about when it’s time for a redesign? Is that something that’s worth investing in?
In this blog post, I’ll go over the 15 main benefits of website redesign and why it might be precisely what your business needs.
I will also include a checklist of the questions you should ask yourself while evaluating if you need a website redesign.
What is a website redesign?
A website redesign is a rebuild or optimization of a website to give it a new look or feel, make it more user-friendly, and/or add new functionalities, with the ultimate objective of improving the user experience and achieving the business goals and objectives.
A website redesign process starts with understanding the website objectives and goals.
It could then include changing the fundamentals of the website like the structure, navigation, the CMS, or the visuals and marketing elements like visual design, and content, or both.
15 Benefits of Website Redesign: Why You Should Invest in It
A website is often the first and most frequent interaction a potential customer has with a company, so it’s important to make sure this experience is a good one.
Here are 15 benefits of website redesign and how it can help your business.
1. More technically efficient website
One key benefit of a redesigned website is that it can be made more technically efficient. This includes things such as faster loading times, optimized code, and reduced server strain.
You can change your content management system, and update the website’s code to the latest standards. This can ensure that your website loads faster and is more compatible with modern browsers.
Related: How to update a website
Additionally, when doing a website redesign, you can implement the latest security features to increase the security of your site. This is particularly important for websites that collect sensitive information, such as credit card numbers.
2. Modernized brand imagery
Your website is one of the first places potential customers will go to learn about your business. So it’s important to make sure it’s representing your brand well.
Outdated website designs can make your company appear behind the times, which is not the impression you want to give potential customers.
A big advantage of website redesign is that it can update your brand imagery including your colors, visuals, and fonts, to reflect the current trends and give your website a fresh, modern look.
It can be a great way to give your brand a fresh start, give your business a more professional appearance, and appeal more to your target audience.
Additionally, refreshed imagery can convey a message of growth and progress, which can be appealing to potential customers and clients.
3. Faster loading times
Visitors to your website expect to see content quickly and without any delays. A slow website can frustrate users and cause them to click away to another site.
A website redesign can help to streamline your code and improve your server response times, resulting in a faster loading website.
In addition, a redesign can also help to optimize your images and other media files, further reducing loading times.
By investing in a website redesign, you can ensure that your site is able to keep up with the demands of today’s internet users.
4. Better user experience
As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to improve your bottom line. One way to do that is to make sure your website is designed in a way that provides the best possible user experience. Which means a loss of sales.
A website that is not optimized for user experience can be difficult to navigate, to search for information, resulting in frustration for users and making them leave your site.
One of the biggest benefits of a website redesign is that your current website is simplified for user experience, with a strategy of user-first.
For example, if a website’s goal is to sell products, then a redesign could include an easy-to-use shopping cart and clear product descriptions.
A well-designed website is easy to navigate, can provide a better experience for users across all devices, and lead to more satisfied customers.
5. Better functionality and features
A website redesign is a big change to your website where you take advantage of new technologies and trends to improve the visitor journey. It can involve changing the code, the content, the structure, and just the fundamental way that your site works.
A key benefit of a website redesign is that while doing it, you can add a lot of functionalities and features that you did not have before or were not possible. For instance, if your CMS did not support them.
These features could include functionalities to improve the ecommerce process, the content journey, or even the contact options.
For example, if you want to add a chatbot to your site, you can do so during the redesign process.
An improved, modernized website like this could vastly improve your user engagement and conversion rates.
Related: What should a business website include
6. Improved responsiveness
Another big benefit of website redesign is that you make sure your site is much more responsive than before. Probably you designed your previous website a few years ago.
Even if your site was responsive then, since then, there have been more kinds of smartphones in the market, and you have added more dynamic features to your website.
In a website redesign process, your entire site will be checked for mobile responsiveness on multiple devices.
7. Improved SEO
A website redesign is not only a great way to improve your search engine rankings, it, in fact, should be a key objective.
With a website redesign, your pages are much better structured, effective tags and titles are used, and the site overall includes more keyword-rich, engaging content.
As a result, your site will be more likely to rank highly in search engine results pages (SERPs), making it more visible to potential customers.
8. Increased social shares
Social media is a powerful tool that can help to promote your brand and reach new customers.
When you redesign your website, you can make sure that it includes social media buttons and other features that make it easy for visitors to share your content.
You can also use your redesign as an opportunity to create new content that is specifically designed to be shareable.
Besides, as we saw earlier, a website redesign can create a modernized, engaging website, and that can encourage visitors to stay on your site longer and explore more of your content.
It can also lead to increased social shares. When users like your site and find your content fresh and relevant, they are more likely to share it with their followers.
As a result, a website redesign can help you get increased social media exposure and reach a wider audience than ever before.
9. More brand consistency and credibility
Brand consistency is essential for any business that wants to compete online, and a website redesign can be a great way to achieve it.
Quite often when you as a small business develop your website, you use a template theme from Wix, WordPress, Shopify, or some other website platform, you add your own content, and you launch your new website.
Which is fine.
But what is often not considered in this process is your small business brand. You may just end up having a business website, not a branded website.
So usually there is not much consistency in your brand attributes or brand messaging.
One of the key benefits of a website redesign, as mentioned earlier, is that you start with the objective of creating a website with evident brand consistency.
You create a brand kit, a color palette, a messaging hierarchy, and ensure that you create a website that matches your brand story.
A website with good brand consistency will reflect the overall look and feel of your brand, helping to create a cohesive and seamless experience for your visitors.
Such a website also creates a more professional image of your business and makes your brand and website easy to remember and revisit.
10. Increased traffic
There are four primary ways of driving traffic to your website:
- Organic: Your audience finds your website through search engines
- Direct: Someone types your URL directly in the browser or clicks on your bookmarked site
- Referral: People find you on other websites and check out your website
- Social: Your audience finds your site through social media
Some of the benefits of a website redesign that we saw already are improved SEO, increased social shares, more engaging content, and better user experience.
- Better SEO can help you to attract new visitors through organic search.
- High-quality content can help you get links and mentions in other sites, which can drive the readers of those sites to yours.
- A user-friendly, modern, engaging website can lead to your audience bookmarking your website for repeat visits.
- More social shares can bring traffic from social media to your website.
All of this essentially means that with a website redesign, your website is more likely to be found, visited, and revisited, which means more website traffic.
11. More credibility and customer trust
Customers have a lot of choices. They can easily go to a competitor’s site if they don’t like what they see on yours, so it’s essential that yours is trustworthy and reliable.
A dated or poorly designed website will give customers the impression that your company is behind the times or doesn’t care about its online presence.
On the other hand, a sleek, modern website that keeps up with the latest trends will give customers the impression that you’re a professional, reliable business that cares about providing a good experience.
It will instill confidence in your customers and show them that you’re serious about your business.
Moreover, regular updates to your website will show customers that you’re committed to providing them with the latest information and keeping them engaged with your brand.
All of this can improve your credibility and lead to increased customer trust and loyalty, which are essential for any successful business.
12. Increased lead generation
A website redesign gives you a chance to take a fresh look at your site and make sure that it’s designed in a way that will encourage visitors to take the next step and contact you.
In addition to making it easier for visitors to find the information they need and to contact you, a redesigned website can also help you capture more leads from online sources such as search engines and social media.
A modern, mobile-responsive website with clear calls to action and integrated lead capture forms can make it easy for web visitors to become leads, even if they’re not quite ready to buy.
13. Better conversion rates
Website redesign is a marketing tool that can help you boost your conversion rates.
A redesign makes your website very easy to navigate and user-friendly, providing a positive user experience and make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for – whether that’s signing up for your newsletter, downloading a white paper, or making a purchase.
It will encourage visitors to stay on your site, learn more about your products or services, and even buy.
In addition, a well-designed website will convey your marketing message clearly and effectively, ensuring that visitors understand what your business is all about and why they should buy from you.
14. Higher return on investment
When you redesign your website, you have the opportunity to streamline your design and make it more efficient. This will make your website easier to maintain and update, which can save you both time and money.
Besides, as we saw earlier, by improving the overall design and user experience of your website, you can get more traffic, leads, and conversions.
In the long run, a website redesign will reduce your customer acquisition costs and provide a significant return on investment by lowering your costs and increasing your revenues. #websitedesign #websiteoptimization Click To TweetWebsite redesign checklist: How to know when you need it
Here are some questions you can ask yourself before you think about a website redesign.
- Have your value propositions and target audience changed?
- Is your website’s technology outdated?
- Does your business accurately reflect your brand?
- Does your website take too long to load?
- Is the website experience lacking on mobile?
- Are conversions declining?
- Does your site provide an engaging user experience?
- Is your site’s SEO up to the mark?
- Is your website helping to make your business easier?
- Is your site easy to navigate?
If the answers to most of the above questions are no/ not sure, then it’s time to consider a website redesign.
How often should you do a website redesign?
A successful website redesign can have a big impact on your business. However, it’s important to carefully consider the timing of your redesign.
If you do it too often, you risk overwhelming your visitors and your brand with too much change. On the other hand, if you don’t do it often enough, your site may start to look dated and fall behind the competition.
As a general rule of thumb, most businesses should aim to redesign their website every two to three years. However, this timeline may vary depending on your industry, the size and scope of your website, and your budget.
Pro Tip:
If you’re thinking about doing a website redesign, the first step is to sit down and assess your goals for the project. What do you hope to accomplish? What areas need improvement?
If you’re not sure, you could consult with a professional web designer who can assess your needs and make recommendations based on their experience and expertise.
You need to have a good understanding of your website objectives, in order to get the maximum benefits of a website redesign. I would also highly recommend you to adhere to a website maintenance plan to keep your website always updated and optimized.
Benefits of a website redesign: Conclusion
The title of this post refers to why you should ‘invest’ in a website redesign.
Because that’s exactly what it is: an investment.
You need to spend some money to do it well, sure. But you get back plenty of benefits from a website redesign, making it an investment rather than an expense.
As we saw, a well-executed website redesign project allows you to keep up with the latest design trends and technologies and can result in increased traffic, improved user engagement, and higher conversion rates.
You can stay ahead of your competition and better serve your customers.
So analyze your website today to evaluate whether it needs a redesign, and how you can make it worth it, to maximize the performance of your small business website.
Did you ever do a website redesign? What improvements did you get? Would love to hear your comments!
