Web redesign is a process which involves a deliberate makeover of a site in order to improve or modify its appearance. There are several reasons why one might want to redesign a site. These include:
- Repositioning oneself in the marketplace
- Rebranding a product or business
- Enhancing a site’s performance
- Adding extra features
- Simply enhancing a site’s look and feel
Therefore, before embarking on the redesign process, it is important to have some clear goals for it first. Ask yourself why the site needs to be redesigned and what in particular requires enhancement. Take time to examine the current design to find out areas of weakness which need to be addressed.
The following are a few important elements you need to take note of during the redesign process:
1. Visitor traffic
Traffic is very important for the success of any site. Therefore, you need to take time to study your site’s analytics to find out how many people are visiting your site and where they are coming from. Once you have this information, you will be able to redesign your design accordingly so as to increase visitor traffic. In addition, you need to check which pages of your site are most popular. It would be advisable to keep the same features on such pages.
2. Website structure
As additional pages and content are added to a site, it will inevitably increase in size over time. Hence, it is vital to ensure that the structure of your site is able to accommodate future growth. In addition, the structure should make it easy for visitors to find whatever they are looking for in your site.
3. Search engine optimization
One of the most effective ways of making a site visible and increasing the number of visitors is by search engine optimization (SEO). The website redesign process should be aimed at enhancing the traffic and ranking of a site. You might need to carry out some research to find out which keywords are currently popular in your niche. Make sure all your optimization efforts are in accordance to the recent Google Panda and Penguin updates.
4. Website design and layout
The appearance of your content will be influenced greatly by your site’s layout. Usually, the layout helps to draw attention to certain aspects of your site more than others. Therefore, you need to ensure that your site redesign retains focus on the most vital parts of your site. In addition, make sure your layout is user-friendly and attractive to your visitors.
Conclusion
Web redesign is very important for improving the appearance, as well as performance of your site. However, don’t make the mistake of simply redesigning your site to keep up with the latest trends. This might only result in needless expenses, but also as an inability to meet the core needs off your visitors or customers. Therefore, there is need for soberness when observing what is going on around you. Get inspired, but avoid the temptation of wanting to imitate everything.
Charles Mburugu has a great passion for sharing blogging and web development tips. At the moment, he is writing for Moto CMS HTML templates
Admin Note: Your SEO can be adversely effected if upon a redesign any file names have been changed because the Search engine can not find the old file and the server will put-up a 404 page. Before you crate redirects to safeguard against this, please read the next post to learn how to fix it if you loose access to your site or blog, fix-wordpress-htaccess-500-error