It is a fact that marketers redesign websites on an average of 18 to 24 months. Redesigns happen in this frequency due to the fact that the world, and technology in general, changes considerably in this time frame including businesses and consumers. What may have worked 2 years ago may not work in the preset with all types of factors coming into play including Google’s ranking algorithm changes and what consumers expect on the sites that they visit. It is emphasized that your website is more than just a good looking home page as it also be a revenue generating channel that works by bringing in new customers and profit. The question would then be, how to go about revamping your website?

1. Before spending time and money redesigning your site, you would need to think about what you would want to change and why. Do not just focus of having your site redesigned just to make it look better. Your site should also work better after it is redesigned. Take time to look at your analytics data and analyze your starting position or benchmark for site visits, organic rankings, conversion rate and any other key metrics. This will give you an idea on how to create goals and strategies on how each of these will change as a result of the redesign effort. When you would have clear goals, you can have the ability to measure how effective the redesign is which gives you a solid basis for making further improvements as time passes.

2. Focus in Providing Website Visitors with a More Personalized Visits. Over the past few years, there has an obvious shift toward offering website visitors with a more personalized experience. Today, web consumers want to visit sites that offer them content in line with what they are interested in. To further explain, let’s say you run a pet store and a visitor recently purchased a dog collar and leash from you. If that person visits your site again in a few weeks and sees a promo for the same collar and leash, he/she will likely ignore it. But if you displayed related products like dog clothing, dog food or grooming products, you’re offering the visitor something he/she may need while giving him or her a personalized customer service experience.

3. Emphasize Functionality on your New Website. When someone lands on your website, they would want to experience the site smoothly and trouble-free. This is why you need to focus on functionality starting with page load time, as it is a big factor whether or not people coming to your site will stay there. It has been found that approximately 40 percent of people will leave a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load.

In addition to load time, take a look at navigation. Is your site easy to navigate or is it confusing? Is there a clear route from research to point of purchase? If you find your visitors have to spend time clicking this and clicking that in order to get from point A to point B, use this redesign to make it easier for them to move through your sales cycle.