Determining Your Goals: Tips to Get You Started on a Website Redesign
A great website is more than just a pretty face.
When you think about redesigning your website, it’s likely that the first thing that comes to mind is the design. However, there are several factors to consider when redesigning that far are more important than just aesthetics. Before you can start thinking about mockups, layouts, and content for your new site, you need to set clear goals for your redesign.
These goals will help fuel your redesign and create benchmarks that will allow you to evaluate the success of your design when all is said and done. In addition, your goals will also help guide you throughout the strategy and design process. Specifically, your goals will allow you to:
- Plan and prioritize your content
- Design the organizational structure of your website
- Decide on a clear message and value proposition
- Determine the action(s) you want your visitors to take when accessing your website
Determining the relevant goals for your website may seem like an overwhelming process, but it is actually quite simple! The following tips will help move you through the process during your website redesign.
Get to Know Your Customers
A good place to start your website redesign is to create personas of your target audience. Along with the basics (such as age, gender, education, and income) you should also consider more in-depth information such as where your consumers shop, what other websites they frequent, how often they purchase your product or service, and their current opinion of your brand.
Use Your Business Objectives to Define Goals
You likely already have a set of clear business objectives including goals about revenue, number of customers, or conversion rates. One of the best ways to create specific goals for your website is to base them around these business objectives. This will give you a definitive direction for your website redesign.
A desire to simply increase website traffic is never an adequate goal as gaining more visitors does not necessarily mean you will meet any of your business objectives; for instance, you may receive a high quantity of low quality traffic through visitors who never engage with the company. A better goal would be to decrease bounce rate and aim to keep your visitors on your site longer.
Survey Your Users
As a business owner, you may have a number of motivations for redesigning your site, but it’s essential that you don’t forget those who will benefit most from your new website: your customers. Current users can be a great resource for helping you to define your redesign goals. Ask them what they like about your current website, and ask what they think should be improved. In addition, ask opinions about what they value in other websites they have interacted with. This feedback should provide you with a good starting point for your redesign.
Monitor Your Goals
Your website redesign is not complete until it is a proven success. You need to take care not to lose sight of your goals as you continue through the redesign process. Be sure to take note of your current site analytics as they relate to your goals before you start the redesign process. This will enable you to track your progress as you go. Although Google Analytics is a popular choice, there are a number of other free and premium solutions available.
Being clear about what you want to achieve with your redesign in the beginning will provide you with a great platform from which to build your site. It’s important to create measurable goals beyond design, because merely creating an aesthetically pleasing web presence won’t directly improve your business; impressing customers and making them want to return will.
