How to plan a successful website redesign project

Develop website personas

What do your users need?

When it comes to digital marketing and website success, it is essential that you understand your customers. Whether you have one ideal audience or several different targets, who you want to reach with your website is just as important as who they are, what they need, and how to best communicate to them. These factors should drive your website redesign decision making.

In web design lingo, this analysis of your users and their needs is called a website personas report. You’ll use your personas to develop an effective conversion strategy, create optimized content, and position strong calls to action that get results. Then, you’ll tailor your new website layouts to create the best user experience for those target audiences.

Take an in-depth analytics review

What do the numbers say?

After you’ve put together your website personas report, you’ll want to turn to the hard numbers. Analytics track actual statistics and individual web metrics, and this data can help you answer vital questions, including:

• Who is using your website? What do you know about them?
• Is SEO driving your website traffic? Are you ranking for appropriate key terms? Is most of your traffic coming from people in your target audience?
• Are your website visitors taking action at the right places?
• At what point are your visitors leaving your site?
• What website usage trends or activities are you measuring currently? How many conversions are you getting now (per day/week/month)?
• What promotion tactics seem to work best?
• Anything surprising in your website analytics?

Your existing website probably tracks some data, but your metrics or conversions may not be as high as you’d like. That’s ok. Take note of your starting point, and make a list of other types of information you’d like to capture going forward. This will make you better equipped to close any gaps moving forward during your website redesign process.

Define your redesign project’s purpose

What does success look like?

Use what you’ve learned so far to build a strategy for your website redesign project. Look at your findings and set aside some time to create a master plan. Your strategy should answer questions, such as:

• What part does your website play in your organization’s overall marketing plan?
• Once your new website launches, what results will you need to measure to determine success (or have an ROI)?
• What other factors could influence the relative success of your website?
• Are your goals for the website realistic? In what timeframe?
• How often will you track and report on different success measures?
• What is the business value of meeting these goals?

Review current partnerships

Are your vendor relationships still working?

Another important step during your planning process should include assessing your current vendor partnerships and technology tools. Once you have a strategy for creating an improved website, coupled with an analysis of your current website’s performance, you’ll be in a better place to consider how you want to build and maintain your new website.

Determine which tools, software, resources, and partners are best suited to help you reach your goals by answering these questions:

• What third party tools and software are currently being used to power your website? Do you still need to use all of them? Are these still the best tools available to meet your needs? Who manages or owns these tools? (e.g., are they hosted, set up by a third party, or managed by your team?) What are the current contracts terms for each?
• How satisfied are you by the work done by your current web design company and digital marketing agency? Do you like working with them?
• Have you grown to the point where you need to bring in new partners? Do you need to engage an outside web design company for the first time? Is it time to replace an existing partnership you’ve outgrown?
• Are you working with many different partners to cover your marketing needs? Would it be more efficient and cost-effective to work with one firm that offers a wide range of services and can manage multiple marketing projects at one time?

Compare website estimates

Why different vendor costs aren’t apples to apples?

When it comes to website redesign costs, you have options. For many parts of your project, you can choose to handle the task internally, use a template, opt for partial customization, or ask for a comprehensive solution. Any of those options can work, but some may make more sense than others to handle in-house depending on the size of the job, what your goals are and what expertise you have on staff, and even your project timeline.

You may also be surprised to see very large pricing differences between estimates you receive. Some web design companies will offer packages A, B, and C. Others might propose a price for one customized solution. The difference in costs are much like the differences you might find when buying a house because of all the different factors involved, including aspects like size/square footage, builder options, and the level of features of your new home.

When it comes to website estimates, variations in quotes might be due to the number of pages, application development functions, and details such as design quality, interactivity, and SEO.

As you analyze your quotes, don’t forget to check and see if strategy work is covered by their price. Just as you might hire an architect to design your home, to get your website just right you may need professional help developing a content strategy to organize your site’s information and create a strategy to ensure your new pages rank with Google.

When comparing estimates, it is also important to get a breakdown of what different price ranges may cover and what components your team will be responsible for managing or creating.

The chart below compares possible website solutions and what you might expect from each option:

Consider a phased approach

When is it beneficial to not do it all at once?

It is easy to make a wishlist for your new website and get frustrated (or surprised) when the timeline or budget makes your dream project seem impossible to complete. That’s why we always recommend prioritizing the work included in your feature list. Tagging or grouping features as “must-have,” “should-have,” “nice-to-have,” and “future ideas” makes it easier to budget for what you need by launch and what you can tackle during future phases of your project.

The items in your “must-have” group should correlate directly back to features that will help you achieve your goals. When you’re starting a complex project, this exercise is extremely helpful, especially if you need to get buy-in from a large group with differing opinions on what should be a priority and it can also help you focus on necessities when you’re trying to get the max out of a limited budget.

Taking a phased approach could make website redesign costs more digestible, allowing you to iterate other marketing atop your website redesign project so that you can start showing ROI sooner.

Compare your site budget with industry norms

What are others paying for their website?

Are you curious how much other companies like yours are spending on digital marketing and building websites? Here is a roundup of statistics and guidelines that may surprise you:

• According to the Wall Street Journal, digital marketing spending varies by industry. Ranging anywhere from 4 to 24%, the average amount most companies spend on digital marketing is 11% of their total budget. Think about how you can spread your website redesign project costs across your organization’s budget. [source]
• Small businesses, which Forbes defines as those with under $5 million in annual revenue, typically spend 7–8% of their total revenue on marketing. [source]
• The Small Business Administration recommends that businesses operating with at least a 10–12% margin consider spending 7–12% of total revenue on marketing. [source]
• Entrepreneur suggests that companies between one and five years old spend 12–20% of their gross revenue on marketing. For older companies with more brand equity, 6–12% may be enough. [source]

Check out online reviews and ratings

What do their clients have to say?

One of the most valuable steps you can take when evaluating website companies is to check out feedback from their past clients. Google each vendor’s name with the word “review” or “rating” (e.g., [ Company name ] + reviews) and look at online review sites such as Facebook, Google, Yelp!, and Clutch. Pay attention to the star rating number, the number of reviews, when the reviews were posted, and what the customers say in their comments. What others say (or don’t say) about a company publicly should be one of the strongest indicators on your checklist.

Rethink sending out aN RFP

Do you really need a request for proposals? 

As part of your process for selecting a company to partner with on your website redesign project, you might have heard you need a send out a request for proposals. Although some companies are required to locate vendors using an RFP process, many organizations find that this method of vendor selection cuts them off from opportunities to receive strategic input.

Don’t limit yourself. You wouldn’t go to an orthopedist with your own treatment plan, right? You’d call the best orthopedist in town and tell her your knee hurts!

Similarly, if you’re looking for a significant website upgrade, you’ll get better results choosing a web design company with expertise that fits your needs and your team’s culture and personality, and then asking that firm for recommendations. In many cases, these outside experts will be able to help you think about your project (and potential web design solutions) in new ways, and they can present you with a choice of options that will make your project better, faster, and more efficient.

Start talking to web companies

Who has the best solution? Who asks the good questions?

Once you’ve narrowed down the list of best vendors to consider for your website redesign project, it’s time to talk. Set up interviews with each web design company to learn how they might approach your project. As you have these conversations, one or two companies should rise to the top. This might be based on personality or process styles, their portfolio may be a standout, or a combination of factors.

Also look out for ideas. Who has the best solution for your project? Who asks good questions that challenge your thinking (in a good way)? Who will be a good partner to make sure you reach your goals?

A long-term website partner will be good at bringing your ideas to life and adding to them. Website companies build websites all day, every day. Why would you expect or accept anything less?