An online presence for a company has become more and more important every year. Now especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, a large chunk of customer sales and traffic has moved to the web. For many customers now, your website will be their first and many even the last impression of your business, if it wasn’t already. So be sure you put your best foot forward, and that starts with a beautiful website that proudly represents your brand. So, where do you start?
By evaluating your current website
In order to fix a problem, you have to know what the problem is first. Start by sitting down with a group of staff members and simply try accessing parts of your website. Identify different areas that function well and areas that could use improvement. Have different individuals review all the pages on your website to ensure you get a well-rounded assessment. Do they all have relevant, up-to-date information? Are there any glitches or areas where things won’t load? Is your website accessible on different devices? Take note of what you would like to change about the website and why. If possible, survey customers who use your website to see if they are satisfied with how it functions or not. It’s important as well to audit your website’s traffic by reviewing the analytics. You don’t want to see numbers decline once you update your website unless you’ve really spent the time to fine-tune your website to attract the right customer instead of everyone, loosely. Take note of specific keywords and important content you’ll need to carry over into a new design if you decide to start over from scratch, so you don’t lose valuable time trying to recreate the wheel.
Understand your brand and audience
Again, your website reflects your business and brand values. When you begin planning the design of your new website, it’s important to not only keep that in mind, but also think about your audience’s values as well. What will attract people to the website? You want to have a good balance between function and visuals but most importantly you want it to be a tool that helps you increase your sales.
Plan early on
Map out beforehand how you would like your website to function before you touch anything on the live website. How will you set up each page of your website? Visualize a site map so your website has a smooth flow to it that’s easy for your customers to use, and easy for you or a designer to follow to make the changes needed. Also don’t set aside content writing. The content people read and look at on your website is extremely important and needs to be written strategically with care. Once you’ve done all of this, you can move on to creating the wireframe (or a website blueprint), and then finally the design and development of your website can be executed. Having a complete plan to move ahead with overall will help prevent you from moving two steps forward and three back as you make decisions on how it will evolve.
Market the redesign of your new website
A website overhaul is a great way to generate attention and get your audience involved. Post about it on social media and talk about it in newsletters. Tell your clients or customers that you do see in person to check it out. It will build anticipation leading up to the actual launch of the new website and you could even get feedback from your audience by asking them for their opinion on certain design aspects of your website before it launches as well. This can help make key clients or customers feel like true advocates for your brand as well as being valued as a customer as well as for their opinion.
For any good business, a stellar website is extremely important to have. It’s a way for your audience to learn more about who you are and what your brand represents, so if your website is feeling out of date in any way, it’s time for an overhaul. COVID-19 has left its mark, use it as a springboard to launch your business over top of its hurdles and move forward into our post-COVID world with confidence. Plus, don’t forget at 3SIXTY Marketing Solutions, we can help you identify opportunities for your current website and help you create a beautiful, redesigned website that functions well for you and your audience! From design to development, e-commerce, SEO, and user-experience improvement, we do it all, and we do it locally! Give us a call at (705) 252-4180 and let’s chat.
