12 Questions to ask before beginning your website redesign

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2 12 Questions to ask before beginning your website redesign About the Author Dallas McMillan is the founder and CEO of Influential. He has spent over 10 years mastering marketing, branding and website design for professional service firms. He combines technical expertise with first-hand insight into professional practice. Prior to founding Influential, Dallas spent 14 years working as a veterinary surgeon and became a partner in a large veterinary clinic group. Dallas helps professionals make sense of the online world and shows them how to use it to grow their business. About Influential This ebook was created by Influential, a leading web development and digital marketing agency. Influential specialises in helping professional services firms to attract new clients, by building strong brands and becoming online leaders in their field.

3 Thinking of redesigning your website? What? An executive guide to building a successful website redesign before seeking a quote for your professional services firm. Why? Your website is critical to your online marketing presence. A strong and engaging website will bring you desirable new clients, help maintain your connection with suppliers and stay ahead of your competitors. Who is it for? Professional services firms with a current website. - Call to Action How can Influential help? Influential offers website, branding and marketing services in the following areas: Personalised creative Research and strategy Content marketing Campaign management Influential also offers: Search engine optimisation, Social media strategy and implementation & Graphic design and layout.

4 1. Why are you redesigning? Your website forms a critical part of your online marketing presence; the more specific you are about your reasons for wanting a redesign, the more effective the results will be. Giving your website a makeover, just to freshen it up, will probably not yield much benefit. If you re prepared to go through the expense of redesigning your website, ensure it addresses these issues: Does your website need to be: Responsive for mobile devices? Aligned better with your brand? More effective at generating leads? More effective at directing visitors to a call-to-action? More user-friendly and informative for visitors? Capable of being changed/managed in-house?

5 2. What do you want it to do? Websites can serve many different functions - they can be a vehicle for communication, marketing, lead generation, client education, staff productivity, recruitment and many other things. Therefore, it s important to think about what you need your website to do before you start a redesign. A good place to start is to review your current business goals and then determine what role you want your website to take in order to support them. Does your website need to: Attract new clients Build client loyalty and satisfaction Educate clients Be an Ecommerce platform ie. sell products including cross-selling or up-selling to existing clients Help retain clients Establish your position as a thought leader Help build your brand Enable business functions such as CRM Improve efficiency by enabling some offline processes to be done online; provide customer portals

6 3. What resources and assets do you currently have in place? Take stock of what assets and resources are currently available to you. This should include a review of your: Current website content: What s missing, what needs improving, what needs updating? Website traffic analysis and marketing performance (Analytics and ROI): What s working, what s not working? Current website users and visitors: Who are they? Are they the right people you want to target? Printed marketing materials: What offline assets do you have that could be incorporated into your website? Business processes: Are there any processes that could drive greater efficiencies by being handled online?

7 4. Who are the key stakeholders that need to be involved in the redesign? If you want to create an effective website that supports your business goals it requires involvement from all of the key stakeholders in the business from the very beginning. Before you start working on a redesign decide: Who is responsible for approving the project, setting and delivering the budget? Who is responsible for setting goals and overseeing the project? Who will write content? Who will manage the website maintenance? Who will handle ongoing online marketing, such as , social media or blogging? How will your marketing, sales and other departments integrate with your content team? To build a genuinely effective website that is aligned with your business strategy, a great deal of work needs to happen inside the business first. It s important to plan ahead as this can be a costly process in terms of time and resources since it involves much more than just a website designer.

8 5. Team management of redesign Building a website is a team sport - you need to ensure the right members of your team and also external experts like copywriters, designers and coders are all in place (If you are working with an agency they will coordinate the external team). Who is currently managing the site? Have you got the team in place to write, edit and create content including audio-visual? Who is handling back-of-house processes such as backups and security? What is your contingency plan if any of these people leave? Can you commit 5-20 hours per month to create website content and marketing material to ensure your website is constantly updated and creating results for your business?

9 6. What are your competitors doing? As with any marketing strategy, start by analysing what your competitors are doing online locally, nationally and internationally. When people come to your site, who will they be comparing you to and on what? What do you need to do to make sure you are perceived as the market leader? Have you looked at the sites that you don t perceive as competition, but your customers might? How are they using their website and other tools like social media, which might pose a threat to your business? What lessons can you learn from other businesses to help you better connect with your clients?

10 7. What do your customers want? One of the most vital steps in redesigning a website is understanding what your customer wants and needs your site to do. Websites should be planned and built around the people you want to use them, so take the time to consider the needs of your customer base and create a user-friendly site. Identify what your clients need. What do they need from your business? What do they need from your website? What would make the site more Create ideal customer profiles. Think about everybody that is likely to use your website. You may have several different customer segments, or perhaps you have other website users such as suppliers or partners? valuable and easy for them to use? Find out what your customers think about your current site. What do they like and don t like? It s important to retain the content and functionality of your site as many make the mistake of discarding this with a new design which makes it less beneficial to the user.

11 8. Technical features and management Most professionals and business owners find websites confusing. It s important you choose a website technology that suits your goals and technical skills. Generally this means that you should either: Choose a website that is easy to edit and update yourself OR Engage your digital agency or designer to manage your website for you. This will cost more but save you time and frustrations. Other considerations you may want or need on your website: An easy to use CMS (Content Management System) Training and support to get started? And for how many people? Ongoing support from the developer Help to run updates, backups and security for your site Ongoing marketing services Make your website mobile and tablet friendly SEO or other marketing activities prior to launch Social Media Integration Integration with your CRM or marketing platform Will you have full control over your site? Do you want flexibility to move providers if necessary? Do you want the ability to change your site s design without building from scratch?

12 9. How should your new site be structured? The next stage is to begin planning your site s structure. Think about how you want your visitors to navigate their way around and how you can make it easy for them to find the content they need. Create a site that is so attractive and informative that it causes visitors to stay - exploring more pages resulting in potential sales. Will you be adding content to drive leads? Prepare a plan for calls to action that relate to your sales process. What information do you want on your site? Existing content: What needs to be kept, removed or updated? What is your plan for ongoing content creation such as blogging? What premium content will you add? (eg. paid or downloadable content after filling out a form with contact details) Have you got staff profiles with professional photographs? Are you using videos as a friendly way to invite visitors into your business?

13 10. How do you want your new website to look and feel? Once you ve got a clear focus on how you want to use your website and what you need it to do, start thinking about your brand and how you want it reflected in the design of your new site. Is your branding current or does it need a refresh? Do you have a clear brand guidelines or a style guide? Is your current branding digital and social media friendly? Does your branding distinguish you from your competitors? Does it compare well with other firms? What do you like and not like about your current site s design? Have a look at other sites in your industry; What do you like about what they re doing and why? What sort of look and feel do you want for your site?

14 11. Traffic: How will you market your website? In order to ensure that you get a good return on your investment when you redesign your website, we recommend setting goals. You might be aiming for a 50% increase in online leads over 12 months or want to take the proportion of total business that originates from online sources from 5% to 20% of total revenue over 2 years? These kinds of goals take your website from a static brochure to a dynamic marketing tool that will yield results for your business. How will your website integrate with your overall marketing plan and what role does the website play within it? How will you keep your site visible so that you maintain the flow of traffic and leads coming through to it? How will the other elements of your digital strategy support your website? For example, how will you utilise social media, , industry blogs etc to maintain awareness? How will you keep your website dynamic and relevant after its launch? Search engines love to see changing/updating content so plan for ongoing content creation and features; blogs, social integration, comments, E-commerce, membership area etc.

15 12. Conversion: How will you generate and handle leads? Have you planned specific landing pages for different offers and different customers etc? TIP: Plan offers such as premium downloads, specials and bonuses. How will you gather and handle leads from your website? How will you follow up with people who make enquiries? TIP: The best approach for handling enquiries is generally with an initial auto responder followed by personal contact over the phone or . How will you continue to warm up your leads until they result in a sale? What sort of analytics will you track? (visitors, conversions, sales etc.) Do you have sales and marketing software that also needs to be integrated?

16 Ready to start your website design project? Avoid being overwhelmed when planning your website (re)design. Influential is a full service digital agency that specialises in helping professionals build websites that attracts clients, build their brand, and generate more sales online. Our philosophy is that we understand the web and how it can best work for our clients so they don t have to. Design and marketing support Influential works with professionals at an in-depth level to expose the heart and soul of what makes the business unique to create the outcomes they desire. We work personally with clients to streamline the design process,so you don t have the headaches of coordinating an army of design and marketing suppliers who don t understand your business. Some of the ways we help professionals: Website Design and Development Graphic Design for existing brands Digital Brand Strategy Managed Marketing Campaigns Brand Style guide books Social Media strategy and Implementation

17 Work with Influential Influential specialises in working with professionals who rely on referrals from other professionals, such as specialists (eg Specialist lawyers, doctors and surgeons, auditing accountants etc) and B2B professionals (Like management consultants or business finance professionals) Ready to work with us? Contact Influential today to learn how we can help your brand shine online. Start the process with a free Discovery call for qualified applicants. To get started on your website redesign visit: Call us: us: [email protected] Visit us online: Start my website redesign:

18 More from Influential Influential publishes a wide range of books, guides, podcasts and video to help professionals like you to understand the web and build their online presence. Discover more professional services marketing resources visit Creating an Influential Brand Your brand is one of your most important business assets, yet most professionals don t give their brand the attention it deserves. This is the essential guide to reviewing and refining your brand ideal to read before you start a rebrand or website redesign. In this guide you ll learn how Influential Digital combines creative, technical and marketing expertise to get results for professionals online.

19 More from Influential Writing a Design Brief Working with designers on your logo, branding, brochures or website can be confusing if you don t have a design background. The secret to great outcomes is writing a clear and precise design brief for your designer, this helps them convey the visual message you want. Professional Services Digital Blueprint Marketing a professional practice is a team sport. You need the right strategy, resources and people in order to succeed. In this guide you ll learn how Influential Digital combines creative, technical and marketing expertise to get the best results for professionals online.