So you’ve decided you want your website redesigned. The first question any decent web design agency will ask you is ‘why?’
And although that may seem a little abrupt, it’s really important to know why you want to redesign.
Be ready for this, because most people will say something like: it needs freshening up, or you want to bring it up to date, or your competitor has just had a redesign, something along those lines.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
These, quite frankly, are stupid answers. And they’re not even true. You want your website redesigning because it’s performing poorly, you just don’t know how to say it. No-one takes a well-performing website and decides to redesign it, do they?
And this is the reason you’ll be asked ‘why’, because redesigning a website for visual reasons alone will not solve any problems. It just makes your old problems nicer to look at.
[tweet “…redesigning a website could just make your old problems nicer to look at.”]
Web designers who don’t understand this approach will often tell you that your website will benefit from a redesign, yet they will only address the look. But it’s as true here as in real life, that beauty is only skin-deep.
Maybe your enquiries have slowed down, or you just feel you should be getting more business direct from your website. Perhaps, you’ve added loads of new services or products, and no-one seems to be taking any notice.
This is the real reason you want your website redesigned, and by asking why, we can root out the core reason.
The whole web experience may need redesigning, the marketing strategy could need replanning. Your site may not even need a visual redesign, but may benefit more from changes to structure, usability, or calls to action.
Your redesign must provide a return on investment, and for that you must be able to measure its success. You can’t measure how beautiful something is, and being nicer to look at, doesn’t necessarily mean it it will work any better. So when considering a redesign, ask how your spend can be justified, otherwise you’ll just get a paint job.