A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign 7 steps to a more effective website
Contents Step 1: What do you want from your website redesign?
3
Step 2: Protect your website’s search engine authority
5
Step 3: Make your homepage clear & encourage interaction
7
Step 4: Create original content that attracts visitors
8
Step 5: Converting visitors into leads
10
Step 6: Conduct conversion experiments
12
Step 7: Look at your analytics and review to improve
13
Conclusion: Your website redesign checklist
14
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 2
Step 1: What do you want from your redesign? Are you thinking of redesigning your business’ website? If you are, then this whitepaper is for you.
Before picking up the phone to a designer or letting anyone else loose on your website, it’s important to be clear on what you’re hoping to achieve. There are many really sound commercial reasons for redesigning a business’ website, but just as many that are a little vague and potentially misguided. The former can lead you to increased traffic and business, while the latter could waste your time and money. Here are some common examples of both:
Vague reasons
Sound reasons
“We need a new corporate look and feel.”
“We want to get found by more prospects & increase our traffic.”
“It’s been quite a while since our last redesign.”
“We want to convert more prospects into leads.”
“Our competitors have been redesigning their sites recently.”
“We want more customers.”
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 3
Step 1: What do you want from your redesign? Which way forward? Develop or redesign
Vague reasons for redesigning a website are usually driven by hope and optimism. There’s a feeling that a new website will help create impact and new interest around a brand. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. The chart below is based on extensive research carried out by HubSpot. They’ve found that the initial enthusiasm created by a new company website soon fades away, unless it generates a clear return on investment in terms of new customers and increased profits. Happiness
Your Company Your Prospects
In Internet marketing terms, website development is now as much about business results as it is design. A beautiful website, although aesthetically pleasing, must be secondary to attracting more quality traffic and generating new business leads. It’s worth asking yourself whether you could achieve your goals by simply developing your existing website. By the time you’ve finished this whitepaper you may decide that this is a better route for you.
Marketing Takeaway It’s important to go into any website redesign for the right reasons and with clearly defined goals. It’s worth considering: • How much do you want your new site to add to your bottom line? • How many new customers do you need to attract to achieve that?
Launch
6 months
Source: HubSpot, Website Redesign Strategy, 2010
12 months
Time
• How many leads will that require and how much extra traffic will you need each month? If redesigning your website still makes sense after reviewing your reasons, crunching these numbers and setting your goals, it’s time to move on to step 2.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 4
Step 2: Protecting your search engine authority Once you’ve decided to redesign your current website, it’s vitally important to follow the correct process. If not, you run the risk of losing the search engine authority that your existing site has already built up. This authority is an important asset for any business and needs to be protected.
What are your website’s assets? Your current website’s assets include its content, inbound links and keyword rankings. To preserve your position in the search engine rankings, you must ensure that they are all transferred as part of the redesign process. To help achieve this, it’s worth going through the following checklist: Determine how many pages your current website has. Determine which pages are the most popular. Work out how many inbound links these pages have. Establish where these links are coming from. Look at which other pages have inbound links. Work out which keywords are driving traffic to your site. Determine which pages rank well for your main search keywords. Using this information, you’ll be able to preserve your website’s search engine authority. You’ll want to protect the pages that are most popular and have the most links as these are the ones that underpin your search authority.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 5
Step 2: Protecting your search engine authority Changing your name can become a disaster
Marketing takeaway
If you’re redesigning your website because your company is changing its name, then there are other important considerations.
Although you may need professional search engine optimisation help to protect your website’s search authority, it’s definitely worthwhile.
It’s likely that you‘ll be moving to an entirely new web domain (for example, from www.ouroldname.co.uk to www.ournewname.co.uk). If this is the case, you’ll need to think about setting up permanent redirects (known as ‘301’ redirects) from every page on your old domain to the equivalent page on your new one. This is because search engines use inbound links (links on other sites to your site) to help measure the authority of your site. Don’t fall into the trap of only setting up a redirect for your homepage.
Without following the correct process, a website redesign can do more harm than good to a business. Your new site will end up starting from scratch in the search engine rankings, which could mean a significant loss of traffic and business.
Even if you put these redirects in place, it’s a good idea to identify your current site’s strongest inbound links, so you can contact these sites and ask them to update your company name, web address and the anchor text (the text used on the link). If for any reason you can’t put permanent redirects in place, then this exercise is essential.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 6
Step 3: Make your homepage clear & encourage interaction For the majority of businesses, their website’s homepage is their most popular web page. For this reason, it’s important that your redesigned homepage includes certain essential elements.
Your new homepage’s first impression must be all about simplicity. It needs to be easy to use with clear navigation. As the graph below shows, 76% of consumers prefer websites that make it easy to find what they want. 2 What is the most important factor in the design of a website?
Other: 5%
The website makes it easy for me to find what I want: 76%
The website has a beautiful appearance: 10% The website offers a cutting edge interactive experience: 9% Source: HubSpot, The Science of Website Redesign, June 2011
To make your website intuitive to use, try to simplify the choices a visitor must make. For example, if you offer 25 services, put them under 4 overarching umbrella services so your visitors won’t be overwhelmed. Also, make sure you highlight both your company blog (or equivalent area of your website, such as your ‘News’ or ‘Advice’ page), as well as your social media networking pages on your homepage.
Marketing takeaway Your homepage is the public face of your business. You only get one chance to make that all important first impression, so make sure you carefully format your homepage. The focus should be on clear navigation, as well as encouraging interaction and engagement in the future.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 7
Step 4: Create original content that attracts visitors Original content is the key to successful inbound marketing and improving any website’s marketing performance. It will help you increase your traffic, as well as the number of leads and enquiries you receive.
Start with business blogging The most effective way to start adding new marketing content to your redesigned website is through a blog section, or similar. Of people that use the Internet every day, 65% read blogs and 38% read between 5-10 regularly. Just take a look at the statistics below, which are taken from recent research 3 : •O f the companies surveyed, those with an active blog attracted 55% more website visitors on average. • Of these, 57% had acquired new customers through blogging in the last year. •O n average, their websites had 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages, both of which are vital for search engine performance. •T wo-thirds saw publishing content on their business blogs as ‘critical’ or ‘important’ for marketing their business.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 8
Step 4: Create original content that attracts visitors 55% More Website Visitors for Companies that Blog 2,500
Marketing takeaway
97% More Inbound Links for Companies that Blog
Original content is a website’s lifeblood. It shows your visitors what you do and helps build trust and credibility.
20,000 18,000
2,000
16,000
1,500
12,000
Starting with your blog, your business needs to be continuously publishing content that helps keep prospects engaged, informed and interacting with your business. If you don’t, it’s likely that your competitors will.
14,000
10,000 1,000
8,000 6,000
500
4,000 2,000
0
0 Don’t Blog
Blog
Don’t Blog
Blog
Source: HubSpot, 100 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts and Graphs, 2011
For more on the benefits of business blogging, please see:
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 9
Step 5: Converting visitors into leads However well your website is redesigned, not every visitor will be ready to make any enquiry or become a customer on their first visit. It’s likely that many will be doing research before making a purchase, either about your industry in general or your specific products and services.
For your website to be an effective marketing machine it needs to turn these visitors into leads, by giving them a reason to offer their contact information such as their name and email address. You can do this by adding calls to action, offers and dedicated landing pages to your website.
The power of compelling offers & a call to action Compelling marketing offers can take may forms, such as whitepapers, FAQs or ebooks, or perhaps a free consultation or review. What’s right for you will depend on your business, your sales process and your audience. Your offers should be highlighted by a clear Call to Action, which appears across your website. Here’s an example:
Each Call to Action should take your visitors to a targeted landing page where they’ll complete a short form providing their contact details in exchange for your offer. This is where you’ll start to see real marketing results from your website redesign.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 10
Step 5: Converting visitors into leads Optimising your landing pages The ability to add landing pages to your redesigned website will be essential for successful Internet marketing.
Here’s an example of an optimised landing page that includes all of these elements:
You should be able to build your landing pages without the need to involve your web design agency or IT department. It should be something that you can do in minutes. To be most effective landing pages need to: • H ighlight the benefits of your offer in a clear, simple and concise way. • Keep your landing page’s data capture form above the webpage’s fold, so your visitors don’t need to scroll down. • Have less navigation options than other pages on your site as this boosts conversion rates (your site navigation should be returned once the form has been completed and the visitor is taken to a ‘Thank you’ screen).
Marketing takeaway Offers, calls to action and landing pages are where the magic happens on a business website. They are how you’ll capture potential leads, which you can then develop through other marketing activities such as ongoing lead nurturing through email marketing. Quite simply, if you can’t easily add these elements, then your new website is very unlikely to improve your business’ marketing performance.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 11
Step 6: Conduct conversion experiments Assuming that your new website will give you the ability to add offers, calls to action and landing pages (again, it should!), it will also be important to test different wordings and layouts to determine what works best.
You’ll want to do this by looking at their conversion performance in terms of visitors to leads. In this way you can constantly improve your offers and landing pages over time. If your offers and landing pages don’t seem to be reaching their full potential, here are some ideas to try: • Include a link to them in your email newsletters. • Have your pay-per click ads go right to the landing page. • Use them as the next step after a trade show or event.
Marketing takeaway If you want your website to be really effective as a marketing tool, then it’s best to see an initial redesign as just the start of the process. Your site needs to evolve and improve over time. This is especially important for your landing pages, as they should be the most important pages on your website. By measuring and constantly improving their performance, you can convert more of your website visitors into new business opportunities.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 12
Step 7: Look at your analytics and review to improve It’s important to stress that your redesigned website must give you the information to continually improve its performance.
It’s an old adage that you ‘know that half of your advertising is working, but not which half’. Well, that no longer needs to be the case with your website. With properly set up measurement and analytics it should be simple to see what’s working and what isn’t. In particular, you should be able to see the following with the click of a mouse: • How many people are visiting your website? • Where are they coming from? • How many of these visitors are converting into leads? • Which offer encouraged them to convert? • How many of these leads became customers? Only by having this data at you fingertips will you be able to determine which parts of your website need revision.
Marketing takeaway Measurement and analytics are key for pinpointing the potential in your website. By making small but informed adjustments to your site, you’ll be able to make it even more effective at generating visitors, leads and ultimately sales.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 13
Conclusion: Your website redesign checklist We hope that you’ve found this whitepaper useful. To help you with your website redesign, here’s a checklist so you can double check that your new site has everything you need:
üA re you clear on why you’re thinking of redesigning your site? Remember a lot of businesses don’t just need a new ‘look & feel’, but a more effective approach to their Internet marketing. üB y how much do you need your website to improve your bottom line? üH ave you worked out how many extra visitors, leads and customers you need to achieve that? üD o you have a plan of action to protect the search engine authority that your existing site has already built up? This can help avoid damaging your online presence. üW ill your new homepage have the essential fundamental elements needed to support your marketing efforts? Will it be clear, intuitive and encourage interaction? üD oes your website have a business blog section (or similar) so you can regularly add new marketing content? Creative and original content is the most powerful way of attracting and retaining visitors. ü I s it straightforward to add compelling offers, calls to action and dedicated landing pages to your website, so you can encourage visitors to volunteer their contact information? üC an you easily test different offers and experiment with landing page layouts and wording to determine what works best? üD o your new website’s analytics let you see where your traffic is coming from and what parts of your marketing are working (and what isn’t)?
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 14
Conclusion: Your website redesign checklist And finally…
About Concentric Marketing
Website redesign projects can be expensive and time consuming. To get a return on your investment, you’ll want to make your website more effective from a marketing point of view too.
Concentric Marketing is an inbound marketing agency and Gold Level HubSpot Certified Partner.
Inbound marketing tactics such as search engine optimisation, blogging, and social media are much more effective than a one-off website redesign. They can be easily integrated into your website and some relatively small changes could help it become a powerful traffic generating machine. Would you like a free, no obligation inbound marketing consultation and audit of your current website? Please just call 0845 034 5603 or visit our website at www.concentricmarketing.co.uk.
We help our clients be found by their online audience, whether they’re new customers or clients. Our focus is on enhancing this process of digital discovery through search engine optimisation, content development and business social media communications. We take a proven approach, built upon a process of research & planning, conversion optimisation and continuous evaluation, to achieve measurable results and a real return on investment.
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 15
Sources (unless stated) MARKETSHARE.HITSLINK.COM, OCTOBER 2010 HubSpot, THE SCIENCE OF WEBSITE REDESIGN, JUNE 2011 3 HubSpot, 2010 4 HubSpot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010 5 HubSpot, Webinar Redesign Strategy, 2010 1 2
A Business Owner’s Guide to Website Redesign | 16