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Even in periods of above average performance, when sales are high and customer counts are growing, business owners often still experience some level of gnawing discontent over their digital presence. And while that discontent and anxiety is not always reflective of some urgent design flaw or dysfunction, it is, for one reason or another, always warranted.
Perhaps it’s in comparison to a competitor’s website that a business’ website just feels stale or out-of-date. Or maybe the site isn’t properly configured to adopt forthcoming digital best-practices or industry-recommended features. Whatever the issue may be, no matter how small, leadership needs to invest the requisite time and money to address it and keep it from festering into something much worse.
So, whether you are reckoning with the prospect of a complete site overhaul, or about to conduct another routine site audit, use the below guide to take a moment and reflect on some things to consider in approaching any level of site redesign or development.
Take Time to Identify and Prioritize Your Concerns – No One Knows Your Site Better Than You
To avoid overspending and improve the odds of implementing changes and solutions to their site that bear measurable improvement, it’s key that business leaders first clearly identify their core site-related concerns. Particularly among organizations whose leadership may lack technical knowledge, but who may still have doubts about their site, partnering with a trusted technology adviser or development agency can be tremendously valuable. Web design agencies like TDW Digital Solutions, for example, can validate or speak in greater depth to business leaders’ anxieties and provide solutions that are both comprehensive and sensible.
But before negotiating with a development firm, business leaders need to first take some time on their own to note the areas in which they feel their site may need some improvement, as well as survey employees and other stakeholders to determine other potential weak points. Having a well thought out list of concerns or potential site weak points ahead of time ensures that any conversation with a third party remains focused and on track.
One of the worst ways to start any redesign or update project is to go into negotiations or exploratory meetings without some idea of what needs to be accomplished. It’s one of the leading reasons projects go over budget, and businesses wind up with websites that don’t meet their needs and which include unnecessary, expensive features offering little, if any, added value.
Seek Solutions That Will Pay for Themselves
While it may seem obvious that businesses should strive only to implement changes that will result in some level of return, it’s easy to forget that investments made in one’s website need to be financially justifiable. Setting smart goals, therefore, attached to real numbers can be tremendously valuable to business leaders looking to realize actual value from site updates, redesigns or new features.
To set smart goals, business leaders should first tie any updates or added features to specific functions of their marketing or sales program. For example, an overhaul of a site’s existing structure should focus on improving customers’ path to purchase or conversion, and further prioritize the elimination of conversion bottlenecks.
From a numbers standpoint, the responsible business leader in this scenario should estimate how many additional sales or customers his or her business could receive per the elimination of each conversion bottleneck resultant of the site restructuring.
Making estimates like these enables decision-makers to measure the efficacy of their redesign, but also forces them to think more critically about how their conversion pipeline works and what other variables might also be contributing to conversion friction. For instance, it may prompt them to consider how changing their content strategy could have an added impact in maximizing the benefit of restructuring.
Strive for Flexibility
Given the constantly changing digital technology landscape, businesses whose websites are flexible and can easily adopt new features and aesthetic changes are often the most successful. Beyond the core concerns or issues that prompted a site redesign in the first place, an objective of any site update or redesign should always be to improve site flexibility and adaptability. This will ensure that updates and redesigns can occur more frequently moving forward, and at increasingly little cost to the business. Today, sites that can adapt quickly and more cost-effectively to the latest standards for customer experience have a tremendous advantage over competitors.
Adaptability and flexibility also provide businesses with an opportunity to conduct frequent A/B testing. A/B testing describes a method of scientifically testing the efficacy of new site features using control groups and experimentation groups. Particularly among businesses who depend heavily on their site as a source of conversions and sales, A/B testing can be an enormously valuable, low-cost form of experimentation that enables businesses to be first-movers in adopting cutting-edge digital technology.
Don’t Let Your Digital Presence Woes Fester
Above all, businesses should not wait until it’s too late to redesign their site. Business leaders who feel their site is becoming obsolete, or who believe an investment in a redesign may yield greater overall business performance should begin investigating that feeling today. Engaging in even the most casual site audit can often reveal a great deal about where conversion bottlenecks might exist or if there are features that may be malfunctioning. Furthermore, if a business has not conducted an intensive site audit in some time, it may be worthwhile to connect with an experienced development firm that can spend the time necessary to thoroughly investigate a site’s health and efficacy.
Connect with TDW Digital Solutions Today
At TDW Digital Solutions, we prioritize site sustainability in conducting redesigns and in delivering completely new sites, so our customers can easily adapt and experiment with the latest digital technology trends.
Concerned about the health or performance of your site? Reach out to TDW Digital Solutions today for a complete audit of your site, and to discuss any concerns you might have regarding your site’s health. Whether it’s brand development, website design, or print management, we’re the people who can get the job done – and get your business communications working harder for you.
