Tips to Plan and Create a Successful Website Redesign
by Admin on Aug.28, 2010, under others knowledge
You might already have your company or personal company website which was designed years back and does not comply with the current web standards; current advancement of technology and the traffic is no more getting interested to your site. It is time to take your website to next level. Whether it is added functionality, update content or elegant and sophisticated look to enhance your online image you need to redesign your website. Here are few tips:
Analysis and Goal Identification Analyze your website deeply and think why do you need to redesign your website? Write down your goals. Clearly define the purpose of the redesign, and put it in writing. Ask yourself what do you want to change and what not? May be you just need to change little look and feel. Like just the color schema etc. in that case you don’t need to do much but if you need to complete change the functionality and look then definitely you need to do some research. Focus on your requirements to get back to your target audiences with an eye catching user friendly website.
Analytic Evaluation Monitor your history of viewership and analytic. Analyze web traffic data and feedback from users. Find as much as possible about the current state of your design. Evaluate what is working what’s not. Find broken links, main site map and the functionality. What are the top ranking pages? What are the errors? What parts are outdated from design or technology point of view?
Choose appropriate design The complete concept of web designing has been changed a lot with advance technology. You need to select the best design suited to your website content. Try to follow trends in web designing. For this you need to visit top ranking websites of your competitors to see what trend they are following. Again note down what you like? What you dislike in their design? What are the functionality they are offering? What are the demands of your target visitors? Try to get feedback from your friends or clients. Your design should be relevant to niche and follow the current web standards. Check the browser compatibility as well.
Match the Current Web Standard Follow Web standards and try to make sure new site is all new browser compatible. Website should be graphically appealing as well as rich in content.
Plan your design and write down all the specification Understand what do you want to put and why? You need to ask certain questions to yourself like what should be the layout structure of your design? What are the different options you have? What information you want to put and why? Sketch your layout, structure with details of functionality. It is a good idea to write down a specification requirement document. Make it as project and write down your scope, schedule, resources, and budget and Make use of new CSS3, HTML5, JavaScript features!
Update Content Does the content on my website deliver the right message? You surely don’t want to keep the content of your website which you have 2 years back. Make your content easy to find and current. Spend serious time with your content. Make it precise and targeted to the users you are looking for. Avoid repeating content and Flash. Don’t pay too much attention on look and feel and neglecting content.
Make your new Design SEO friendly Read more about SEO and techniques. Avoid changing your main site map and implements certain related tools from your old website design. Use SEO friendly tags and naming of images and links. Test your new design as much as possible to check any broken links. Initially launch your new website with only few visitors to check the functionality and feedback. After a month make it public. Previous errors removal fully tested and reorganized
Increase User Interaction Ask yourself why visitors currently come to my website? Try to implement strategies which make users to come visit your website regularly. For example you can add polls, create events, surveys, and add news, RSS feeds, and links of social networking sites
