The Website Redesign: How to Achieve Better Results By Jeff Nolan, Nolan Interactive, Ltd. The website redesign process can be simple and will help your company achieve better results if you focus on your customers and your content, remove features that aren t producing results while highlighting the ones that do, and re-align the purpose of your website with business objectives. This article focuses on planning the website redesign and assumes that you ve already decided on which person or company will be redesigning your site. And someone within your firm has been designated to manage the project. Complete Overhaul vs. Esthetic Changes In the world of web design there are two main types of site redesigns. There is the complete overhaul which normally involves producing a brand new website from scratch using content from the old site as a basis for the new design. Then there s the type of redesign that involves mostly esthetic changes. This kind of redesign often includes new and updated graphics, product pictures and new content to reflect additional product or service offerings. Other types of website redesigns involve a mixture of the two. However, no matter which method your company chooses, following a simple plan can help your company achieve even better results. Goals and Objectives Most business people are already familiar with the exercise of determining goals and objectives. In the case of a website redesign the process is very similar. Except this time you have some distinct advantages such as hindsight, and statistics about the people who have visited your site in the past. For those of you who need a friendly reminder, here are some items you may want to consider: The products and services you intend to sell or otherwise inform customers about Determine your audience: What demographic group are you trying to reach? Purpose: ultimately, what do you want the website to accomplish? Since you know your business, I m not going to elaborate on the products and services you intend to sell. However, I will cover some points to help you determine your audience and define the website s purpose.
Determine Your Audience Deciding what demographic group you are trying to reach will involve a little research. If your firm primarily targets the business-to-business (B2B) market then you need to consider some of the following factors: Geography: in what region do most of your customers operate? Industry: what industries or markets does your firm currently supply products and services to? (Healthcare, construction, manufacturing or retail, etc.) Business size: how many individuals does your typical customer employ, and what is the average annual sales revenue? Decision-maker: who decides what and when to purchase your product or service? Is it someone in senior management? What is his or her position within the company? Do you need to appeal to the president or the CEO? Or do you need to reach the purchasing manager? If your company supplies products and services to the business-to-consumer (B2C) market then you need to consider the following: Geography Age, Ethnicity and Gender Occupation Household income There are many other factors to consider when determining audience demographics. As a rule of thumb profile your existing customer base to help determine them. Also consider the website itself; will it need to provide any special services such as information in languages other than English? Determine the Purpose Philip Dormer Chesterfield once wrote: Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies. At the risk of sounding dramatic, the same idea holds true for the website representing your business. Purpose is an absolute critical element of any plan. Without it being clearly defined, your site will never produce tangible results for your business.
Determining the purpose of your website can be as simple as deciding what you want to ultimately accomplish. Here are some examples: Teach potential customers about the features and benefits of your products and/or services Generate qualified leads for your sales team Reduce the cost of customer support by providing self-help tools online Decrease the sales cycles by providing customers with product or service online decision making tools Increase sales revenue by selling your products or services online Streamline the costs involved in transacting business with suppliers and service providers by developing web-based purchasing and accounting tools These are only a few examples and in some cases, your organization may determine that more than one purpose is appropriate for your situation. What s Hot and what s Not Earlier, I said that you have the advantage of knowing who has visited your site in the past. You see, every site keeps track of its visitors, which pages were viewed and specifically how many times each one was looked at, some geographic data about the visitors themselves and a few details about the software that was used to browse your web pages. All this data is kept in a web server log file which can be fed into reporting software and rendered readable to the average person. You can obtain such a report, often referred to as web metrics, from the organization or individual (webmaster) responsible for managing your website. Many of my colleagues use WebTrends Log Analyzer software from NetIQ which produces beautifully formatted and highly informative reports.
Information is Power So how can you capitalize on this data? First, a good web metrics report can offer a wealth of valuable information that can be used to decide which content should be incorporated into the redesigned website. A typical report might include the following information: Most popular and least popular pages on your website Total number of visitors and the amount of time they spent on various pages Search engine keywords that were used by people while searching for your website Second, you can use the report to decide which pages you want to keep and which ones to get rid of. Naturally, you want to incorporate the most popular pages and exclude or revise pages that weren t so popular. And finally, knowing whether most people used Internet Explorer or Netscape software can help you decide what kind of bells and whistles to provide. In any case, it is your customers who ultimately dictate what you publish. Collect the Content Now that you have a better idea of what to include in the new website you can begin collecting the content from various sources. Some may come from your sales and marketing department, some from product or service managers, and if you re part of a smaller firm you will most likely garner content from brochures and other sales collateral. However, most will come from the existing website minus the stuff that wasn t so popular. And make sure you get the content into a format that is easy to edit such as Microsoft Word. Edit for the Web Back in the days when businesses first began setting up websites the common practice was to take text straight from brochures and product manuals and publish it to the web word-forword. Many websites featured content that droned on-and-on about a product or service and most never delivered tangible results for the business. Why? Because most of the information was never even read.
Your customers generally don t read pages from top-to-bottom. They simply scan them. When you browse the Web do you read the entire page or do you quickly scan the page in search of links and subheads until you find what you re looking for? Bottom line; follow a few simple guidelines when preparing the content: Break up text using paragraphs and subheads Use bulleted lists to highlight key points Keep the tone of your writing personal and informal Make sure the most valuable information appears near the top of a page rather than the bottom most users shouldn t have to scroll too far to get to the important stuff Use plenty of descriptive links that connect to other pages within your site Determine Functionality Based on the purpose and objectives of your website, decide which online tools you want to make available to your web audience. Examples of online tools include: Provide customers with the ability to quickly search your website or a product database Sell products or services via e-commerce tools such as a shopping cart Improve support with tools that allow customers to chat online with your support staff Let potential customers subscribe and unsubscribe to your company newsletter The above are only a few examples of various online tools you can offer your web audience. Whatever you decide to provide, each must support the purpose of your website. Put It on Paper Now that the purpose and objectives for your website have been determined, the content is ready and you know which online tools to offer you need to consider drafting a functional spec and the creative brief document. While each document is important, neither has to be perfect. The point is to determine exactly what you need and then put it on paper. Functional Specs Document The functional specs document should include statements outlining the purpose and objectives of the new website. It should outline each online tool you wish to provide for your website audience. And it should clearly illustrate how you want each tool to function.
If, for example, you list a search engine tool as part of the functional spec then you also need to spell-out how you want customers to use it. Ask yourself: where on the website will it be located? What will it look like? What search options will be available? How will the search results look and what will happen if a customer search produces no results at all. Creative Brief The creative brief is normally used by graphic design and advertising professionals to outline how an Ad, brochure, company logo or other creative project should look. Creative briefs are typically very detailed and often include statements outlining the purpose and objectives of what is being designed and who it is being designed for. In a similar fashion, your creative brief should outline the purpose and objectives of the new website, the intended audience, and a detailed description of what you think the site should look like. It s also a good idea to list the bells and whistles that will be incorporated into the site, including a brief list of any online tools you ll be providing to customers. Putting it All Together In this article, I ve outline several key ideas that, when combined, can help you create a meaningful plan to simplify the website redesign project. It is important to focus on your customers, your content and past performance. Oh, and let s not forget one very important concept: make sure the purpose of your website is in line with business objectives too. Copyright 2004, Jeff Nolan, Nolan Interactive, Ltd. All rights reserved. This article may not be reprinted or distributed without explicit written permission from the author.