Redesigning a website can seem like a daunting process. As the face of your business, it’s vital that your website be regularly updated and optimized so it remains competitive.

Because technology and design trends change so rapidly, it’s a good idea to have website redesigns scheduled as a regular part of your business plan. When you begin the redesign process, you need to develop a clear idea of your vision for the website, and then use this vision to guide your redesign process.

So, you need a website redesign plan, and you aren’t 100% certain where you should begin! We’ve broken the redesign process down into seven clear steps for you to follow.

1. Document your current performance metrics.

In your redesign, you want to protect the ways your website is performing well, and also boost performance in other metrics. You will want to analyze your website’s current monthly performance so you know where to begin with your redesign. You will compare your post-design site to these metrics, so make sure you are collecting data in comparable ways.

Useful metrics include:

• Number of visits, visitors, and unique visitors
• Bounce rate
• Time on site
• Top-performing keywords in terms of rank, traffic, and lead generation
• Number of inbound linking domains
• Total new leads and form submissions
• Total sales generated (in dollars)
• Total pages indexed
• Total pages that receive traffic

2. Establish the “why” for your redesign

What are your goals for this redesign? How do you want to improve the performance of your website? You can use the metrics from step one to develop clear, measurable goals, which then can be communicated to your redesign team.

Some examples of clear goals include: increase total sales generated; increase number of visits and visitors; enhance SEO rankings.

3. Define your customer

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if your website works for you: it has to work for your customer. When a visitor lands on your site, your goal is to turn this visitor into a customer by demonstrating to them that you are offering what they need. Therefore, it’s vital that you understand your target customers, also known as your “buyer personas”. You might have one clear vision of your buyer persona, or there might be three or five or more different personas, or types of customer, that you want to appeal to.

As part of your website redesign process, it’s vital to define your buyer personas and to assess if your target customer is changing as part of the redesign. Knowing your buyer personas will inform how you approach the following task.

4. Evaluate your branding

A website redesign is an opportunity to update your messaging and branding, and it is important that this message be clear across your platform. A new visitor should understand immediately who you are, what you offer, and how they can engage with your product or service. Think about what your core message or value statement is: is this reflected in the structure and content of the new website? Do you have a clear idea of your buyer persona(s) and is this reflected in your branding?

Branding is more than just your logos and visual imaging, of course, but a website redesign is also a key time to consider if any of the set visual elements of your brand are due for an update alongside your content and messaging.

5. Preserve your high-performing and search engine optimized content.

Your initial analysis of your performance metrics has hopefully given you useful information about what parts of your current website are most search-valued and are helping you gain visits and inbound links. You don’t want your website redesign to sever the leads and connections you have successfully developed – this defeats the whole purpose of the redesign! It’s important that you plan to preserve your valued pages by doing the following:

• Document what pages and content are most search-valued and are generating useful traffic: this includes your most shared or viewed content, your most high-traffic pages, your best-optimized pages in terms of SEO, and your most-linked pages.
• Create a 301 redirect strategy – this will ensure you retain the traffic and link value of the old page, even if you ultimately replace it. It is vital that you have a clear plan in place to redirect visitors from the old URL to your new URL so you don’t lose this traffic.
• Maintain SEO optimization – make sure distinct pages focus on specific keywords or topics, and use SEO best practices to enhance your website’s rankings.

A redesign is also an excellent opportunity to assess what topics, keywords and content have been neglected, and add them to your new site. You can preserve the effective content you have, and build up areas where your site has previously been underdeveloped or underperforming.

6. Assess your competitors

It’s useful to be aware of how your competitors are performing on similar metrics: how does your site compare, and how can it be improved? It can be useful to review your competitions’ websites and make a competitive analysis: how can your website stand out from theirs? Can you build on their strengths and also capitalize on their weaknesses?

7. Choose the right software.

The success of your website redesign ultimately hinges on the software you use to generate and host your site. Generally called a Content Management System (CMS), this software takes a great deal of the onerous coding and debugging work off of your hands by providing a framework to design, publish, and host your website. A good CMS will help a relatively inexperienced marketer design an effective website, and will give a skilled designer a detailed set of tools and resources to work with on a unique product.  There are hundreds of different CMS to choose from: it’s worth looking into who your competitors use and what the specific strengths and weaknesses of a dozen or so different CMS are – otherwise you might get lost trying to assess every possible software system out there!

Redesigning your website may not be a walk in the park, but it doesn’t have to be exhaustive in terms of the time and resources you need to invest in the process. Use the seven steps above to make a clear, concise, and actionable plan for your website redesign, and watch your business grow.