When to Redesign Your Website With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Your website redesign project plan starts here! If you’re a small business owner, you know you need a website. Your customers are used to finding things online, and without a functional website, you’re potentially missing out on a lot of business. If you don’t have a business website, consider investing in one ASAP – your customers will thank you!

However, if you have an existing website, you’re not necessarily out of the woods yet. Having an older website is better than not having one at all, but websites aren’t static creations that you can “set and forget.” They’re living, breathing organisms that require upkeep and occasionally need to be redesigned. If your website was built a few years ago, it might be time to consider tweaking a few elements for better performance.

You may have some questions about this process. What is a website redesign? How do you know it’s time to redesign your website? How much does it cost to redesign a website? The JSL Marketing & Web Design team has answers to these common questions about website redesign!

Why Do I Need a Website Redesign?

Website redesigns are necessary because the Internet is a rapidly changing place. What worked a few years ago is likely not best practice for web design currently, due to changes in how Google ranks content, customer preference, and industry-specific trends. If your website is a car, think of a redesign as painting and buffing the body, adding new brakes and an engine filter, and changing out turn signals and headlights. The main body and systems of the car are still intact, but you’ve upgraded several components of the vehicle for better performance.

A web redesign is simply taking certain elements of your website and upgrading them accordingly to improve performance. This could involve changing elements of all the following.

  • Website Branding & Visual Elements
  • UX Design
  • Website Templates
  • Website Content
  • Content Management System
  • Linking Strategy
  • Page Images
  • SSL Certificates
  • Schema Mark-Up
  • Website Headers, Meta Descriptions, and Tag lines.
  • And More!

When is it Time to Redesign Your Website?

As a rule of thumb, you probably need to freshen up elements of your website every three years, at the very least. Some experts even recommend a website redesign every 1.5 years.

However, if you start to experience any of the following, it’s time to consider a more comprehensive website redesign.

  • Your Website Sales and Conversions are Declining. You’ve noticed this problem and are actively trying to remedy it by adjusting your website’s copy, promoting the site better on social media and through email marketing, and trying out new offers and sales on the site. However, none of this is really making much of a difference. This suggests that the problem is the website itself.
  • Your Site’s Bounce Rate is Climbing. Your bounce rate is the measure of what percentage of users leave your website within seconds of arriving after only visiting one page. The higher the bounce rate, the worse the performance. Let’s say you own a sports store and are seeing fewer and fewer ecommerce sales. You’ve experimented with different copy, product imagery, and offers, but to no avail. You decide to use Google Ad campaigns to drive higher sales. After a month, you return to evaluate performance and see that the number of new website visitors has spiked, but so has your bounce rate. Even worse, your sales are not climbing at all. If you see the number of users on your site rise, but the vast majority leave quickly, it’s likely your site is not user-friendly or aesthetically pleasing. A site with a poor user experience will result in users leaving quickly, which suggests you probably need a redesign.
  • Your Customers Do Not Like the Site. Listen to your front-line customer service employees. If customers are constantly telling your customer service reps that your site is a nightmare, it’s probably time for a redesign. Disgruntled website users are likely to leave a poorly designed website, which tells Google that your website is not user-friendly, thus damaging your website’s ranking. If you’re hearing from your reps that your customers don’t like the site, listen to them. If you don’t have a dedicated customer service or client success team, use customer surveys, either paper or through email, to gather feedback. If you find your customers hate your website, it’s probably time to redesign.
  • Your Site Just Feels Off. This isn’t the most scientific approach, but if you look at your website and feel it looks a bit dated, chances are your website’s users have thought the same thing. It’s hard to quantify, but we have all seen sites that just look clunky, ugly, and old. Use Google Analytics to gut-check your self, but if your website isn’t user-friendly, isn’t generating conversions, isn’t keeping users engaged, and isn’t being found by new users, your instincts are likely correct.

How Much Will It Cost to Redesign A Website?

This will vary a lot from website to website. No two sites are the same, and no two sites underperform in the same way. However, the cost of a website redesign project depends on how much needs to be redesigned on the site. Rewriting old copy and adding new images will cost less than redesigning templates, adjusting off-page SEO, and completely overhauling the color scheme and branding. Sometimes, the entire structure of the website is so outdated that it might make more sense to scrap the entire website and build a new one. Feel free to connect with our team to discuss your specific example. Once we’ve had time to audit and evaluate, we can offer you tailor-made solutions to help you get to where you need to be.

How to Redesign Your Website

To begin, you will need to have some understanding of the following.

  • Current performance benchmarks and long-term performance goals.
  • Optimal brand messaging and tone for your site’s content.
  • Your site’s competitors and their value propositions, offers, strengths, and weaknesses.
  • Your overall goal for your redesigned website.

These can be difficult for a small business owner to define, measure, track, and implement correctly. Luckily, the JSL Marketing & Web Design team has years of web design experience to help make your next redesign project a success. We’ll walk alongside you throughout the quoting, planning, and implementation processes of your redesign project to help you produce a beautiful, navigable, mobile-friendly, and search-engine-optimized website.

The redesign process is also the perfect time to evaluate other aspects of your digital marketing strategy. If you’re putting your branding, messaging, and value propositions under the knife while planning your redesign, it’s a great time to do the same to your other marketing tactics. Remember, your website is just one key component in your comprehensive marketing strategy. The world’s best website will underperform if not promoted aggressively and correctly through pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, and social media marketing.

We might suggest any of the following to help promote your website.

  • Content Marketing: Words aren’t just for SEO. They’re for piquing your customer’s interest! Use content marketing to create blogs about the questions your users are asking Google and BING. Compelling writing will not only boost your site’s traffic; it also helps drive sales.
  • Social Media Marketing: Your social media profiles are the perfect place to promote your website’s content! Share interesting blogs, good sales, and information about the business from your site directly to your followers.
  • Branding & Photography: Prettier sites perform better. This is a basic element of website design. Your site users are likely to leave your site unimpressed if you don’t have an appealing color scheme and impressive photos. They also might be confused as to who you are if you don’t have a logo or if the logo you do have is forgettable. Head off those problems at the pass by ensuring the logo and photos on your website are top tier.
  • Videography: Videos are a great way to not only answer complex questions and convey information but also to keep users’ attention. Branded and impactful videos have been shown time and time again to boost SEO. Our team has years of experience writing, planning, directing, and editing video shoots and would be happy to help your business tell your story through videography.
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Is there a website page you need users to find? Pay-per-click advertising, through platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, is a great way to drive traffic to the specific pages you need people to see! PPC Advertising is cost-effective and highly targeted, which means you can drive the right customers to your website without investing a Fortune 500-level budget.

Call JSL Marketing & Web Design at 877-514-0276 to start your next web design project today! We have years of experience designing and redesigning amazing websites for small businesses around the country. Follow the link to see some of our work!

Website Redesign vs. Website Development: What’s the Difference?

Web design is a tricky subject. Great web design needs functional web operations, well-written content, graphic design knowledge, and marketing prowess to create a website that is greater than the sum of its parts.  The process is tough, but the jargon can be tougher at times. The digital marketing industry uses a lot of very particular and technical terms when describing web design, which can make the process a little obtuse to outsiders and clients. One question we encounter frequently is, “What’s the difference between website redesign and web development?” They sound similar, but these two aspects of digital marketing are quite distinct.

We’re here to answer that question with a thorough run-through of the terms and what they mean for your business!

Web Design vs. Web Development: The Difference

Web design is the process of designing websites, with special emphasis on content production, graphic design, and page layout.

You may hire a freelance web designer or work with larger web design companies or web design agencies, depending on your need. It typically doesn’t involve hard coding, which we’ll return to when we talk about web development.

Web development, on the other hand, is the process of building, publishing, managing, and maintaining a website.

This usually involves database management, programming, web design, and technical maintenance.  Depending on how the website is built, this could require hard coding, but this will be dependent on each project’s needs.

So, what does that actually mean?

Web designers will focus on perfecting flow, imagery, user interface, and branding. Web developers, on the other hand, own the function and operational efficiency of a website through SEO elements and technical health checks.

If a website is a car, a web designer can change tires, buff out scratches, and repair windshields. Using that same analogy, a web developer is more like a mechanic who deals with the actual functionality of the engine underneath the hood.

How Are Web Design & Web Development Projects Different?

It’s important to note that web design is technically a subcategory of web development. Again, both these disciplines should work in tandem. The type of digital marketer who can apply schema markup and other off-page SEO elements to a website often does not have the artistic grounding to perfect the flow and branding of a website.

The same is true for a web designer. Web designers are great at thinking through how users need a website to look and function, not how search engines read the site.  Any successful web development or web redesign project needs both areas of expertise to truly shine. Google’s algorithmic updates and industry-specific changes in branding make it all but impossible to specialize in both web design and web development simultaneously. It really takes two different sets of knowledge!

 Splitting those disciplines into two positions is the best approach to ensure you have top talent in both areas.

However, those two positions need to work together when creating the build while still remaining distinct. This is called “full stack web development,” which means that both front end and back end web work are blended to create a great website.

That’s where JSL Marketing & Web Design shines!

JSL Marketing’s Full Stack Web Design & Web Development Process

Our process will look a little bit different from client to client, but generally, expect the following when working with JSL Marketing & Web Design on a web design or a web development project.

  • Learn Client Goals: Our team meets with the client to talk through the client’s needs. Does this website need to be e-commerce compatible? Who are the client’s main competitors? What does the existing website look like? Do we need to build a new one from scratch, complete with more powerful SEO elements, or will a graphic design “facelift” on front-end web elements suffice?” Once we have all those questions asked, we move on to Step 2.

 

  • Research: Our team dives into the current website to customize a project plan that will help the client get where they need to be. Are there accounts we need to access? (i.e., hosting, etc.) What content will be transferred over? Do we need to write new content centered around the keywords that will help the website rank well on Google to make the site perform? Is the current branding sufficient, or does it need to be tweaked? Once we have answers to all those questions, we can layout a customized project plan, including benchmarks and due dates, for the client. Once that plan is approved, we transition to the fun part.

 

  • Develop the Project: The content is written, the web template is selected, and the website is built! This stage will depend on the amount of work scoped out in step 2. If we have thirty new pages to write and optimize for search engines, that will take longer to finalize than creating a few new branded images and logos. We’ll make sure to schedule a cadence for project updates and set a preferred communication style to ensure the client is taken care of as we finalize the build.

 

  • Final Approval: Once we have the finished product, we present it to the end client for final approval. We walk through every page, each piece of content, and every image to make sure it’s up to the client’s standards. We also thoroughly test every element of the site in this stage for quality assurance. Once we receive approval, then, and only then, do we set the final site live. Don’t worry; we’re still around to answer questions and even possibly provide support as the client familiarizes themselves with the new site.

Websites work best when cross-promoted on other marketing channels. Google and other search engines rank sites based on the number of site users, so the more traffic you have, the better. That’s one of the reasons we recommend promoting a new website extensively through other marketing mediums. If the client is interested, we’re happy to take a deep dive with them through their current marketing situation. We’re happy to discuss all of the following with you.

  • Pay-per-Click Advertising: Use highly targeted ads on Facebook or Google to reach your perfect customer! This type of advertising is billed “by the click,” which means that advertisers only pay for users who click their ads. That means you’re only paying for what you need.

 

  • Content Creation: As mentioned previously, we’re happy to write additional website content for a website redesign or design project. However, sometimes you have additional content needs, whether it’s blog content, industry-specific white papers, or mailed brochures. Our content specialists will work with you to discuss what those are and the style of voice you need your content written in.

 

  • Email Marketing: Your customer base is one of your greatest marketing assets. Those existing customers already recognize your brand and, statistically, are much likelier to purchase again. Some studies estimate that the odds of reselling an existing customer are between 60 and 70%, versus 5 to 20% for a new customer. Use automated email campaigns and email blasts to draw those likely repeat customers back to your brand!

 

  • Social Media Marketing: Some 70% of the US is on social media. Reach those people with custom-created social media content! There’s a reason to market your brand on social media for every business, whether it’s sharing industry-specific content, communicating brand news to your followers, or showcasing product and service reviews. Talk to our team to discuss your unique business situation.

 

  • Photography & Videography: Crisp, clean, and beautiful photos and videos tell stories for brands! Statistically, we’re much likelier to remember images than the written word. Branded photos and videos are a great way to cut through all the advertising “noise” your users hear and ensure they remember your brand. We’re happy to talk through whatever your unique photography and videography needs are, be it product shots, FAQ videos, or demonstration shorts.

  

  • And More!

 

Marketing, like web design and web development, is part science, part art. Our team knows how to find that happy medium of evidence-based expertise and artistic panache to drive success for our clients. We have thirty 5-star reviews on Google and a litany of satisfied clients on our testimonials page that speak to that! More importantly, however, we have an amazing portfolio of web design and web development projects under our belt!

Contact us today at 877-514-0276 to experience the JSL Marketing & Web Design way.