The smart guide to website redesign

The end of the year is approaching and many companies are thinking of a website redesign.

If that’s your case as well, I’ve put together this article that will help you plan what you need to know in advance to move faster (and ideally save some costs) when it comes to website redesign.

With my web design studio Sparkr I have noticed very different backgrounds when marketing managers or business owners approach me for a website redesign. Some people have done it already once or twice, whereas others don’t have experience with it.

If you’ve redesigned before, this will help you see what’s changed. If it’s your first time, grab a pen and paper. I’ll describe for you all the steps of a website redesign project, how you can prepare for it and also what you need to ask to the party that will help you with website redesign.

In this article I also made available to download the template we use with our clients.

Let’s get started.

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What goals should you have when redesigning your website

The first question to answer is: why am I redesigning the website, and how do I want it to look once it’s done? A website redesign can be triggered by different factors. For example:

• Your website may be old and not communicate anymore the brand well

• It may have grown too much and inconsistently, meaning it lost its consistency and navigation is bad

• It’s not converting: many people land there but don’t take action

• You need to change platform (e.g. you want to migrate your website from WordPress to Webflow)

• Your clients are telling you it’s time to update the website

Whatever the reason, when you start a redesign project, make sure to define (and to communicate to whoever is helping you) what’s your end goal.

Depending on the issue you want to tackle, your end goal may be something like “I want my website to offer a better navigation for visitors” or “I want a website that better presents our brand”.

Knowing your reason for redesign will help any freelancer or design agency to create a work in line with what you need.

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What’s included in website redesign

Often you hear me talking about website design. Usually website design and development go for me hand in hand, so when I say web design I actually mean design and development. We’ve also worked on projects where we only did the design, because the client’s internal developer built it on their platform. Other times (more rarely) we have been only doing development, migrating an existing design to a different platform.

Make sure you discuss what you expect from the web design agency you work with who will do what, and if you only need design or design and development.

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What do you keep and what do you kill?

When you’re planning the redesign of your website it often makes sense to discuss what you want to keep from the existing website and what needs to change.

When doing so, my recommendation is to start with an audit of the existing website.

Here’s how I would do it:

- Take a screenshot of every page of your website (it’s either key + Print Screen (PrtScn) keys for Windows, Shift-Command-3 on Mac or you can use a browser extension like Fireshot.

- For each section note down what works and what doesn't. Look at navigation (how users move from one page to another) at text, images etc.

- Ideally you want to ask to 4-5 of your clients to give their feedback on the website. Have they experienced any issue? Is there anything they’d do differently?

- If you can't ask clients, ask your colleagues to give their feedback.

- Try as much as possible to use data to decide. You may have data from Google Analytics or Hotjar.

This audit is your starting point to define how the new website will look.

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What’s best for you: freelancer, agency, in-house?

Once you know how you want your next website to look, it’s time to decide who will do it.

You read it well.

I recommend you decide who to work with only after you have an idea of what you need. This doesn’t mean that you won’t receive help or guidance from the freelancer or agency you’ll work with. But you need to have an idea of what you want to get the best possible outcome and costs in check.

So what makes the difference between?

Working with a freelancer

Freelancers are usually very agile and are typically cheaper than an agency. But don’t expect them to take guidance or lead your project. Furthermore, a freelancer is usually a designer or a developer, but it’s rare they’re good at both.

Working with an agency

Agencies are known for ensuring the full complete outcome. So with an agency you’ll have a dedicated designer and a dedicated developer (or more than one). Agencies also have a structured process, so they’re able to guide you along the way. This also reflects on costs. Agencies are usually more expensive than a freelancer.

Working with internal resources

If you have internal resources, make sure they have clear hours dedicated to the redesign project. What often happens is that normal work absorbs the time you dedicated to the redesign project.

Working with Sparkr

When I launched Sparkr the idea was to offer the best of working with an agency combined with the best of freelancers. So Sparkr is an agile team that specialises in delivering projects fast for SMEs. You have a dedicated designer and a dedicated developer, so everyone does what they’re best at. However, differently from a regular agency, we’re very small and agile, so you don’t pay the overhead and our responsiveness is to the max.

If you’re interested in working together or you want to get a quote for your next project, the best thing is to get in touch via our contact page.

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How to vet a redesign partner

When you’re in the phase of selecting who you want to work with you want to dive a bit deeper into who they are and what they have done. What I usually recommend (or send to interested clients) is to have a look at the company portfolio, to see what kind of work they’ve done so far.

When you review the previous work of a company, you want to look both at their style but also at the way they think and what makes them special. While it’s relatively easy to imitate a style, it’s actually much harder to think together with you on what your website needs to serve your business.

If you are curious to have a look at some work we’ve done, you can check our portfolio.

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How the redesign process will look like

This is a big question and it will vary a lot according to the company you’ll decide to work with.

Having a good process in place will drastically lower the time it gets you to relaunch your company website.

If you have experience with the redesign of a website, you may want to have your own process and look for a partner that can adapt to it. Typically, that’s the case of companies that need to align different stakeholders and have set milestones.

In any case, don't forget to ask your web agency what process they’ll follow and how much time they plan the project will take.

For Sparkr, we brought our process to relaunch a website in just 1 to 2 weeks. And we’re introducing a website in a day package.

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Scoping your redesign project

Another important step is to scope your redesign project. This is often done by deciding what you need in terms of website and pages. It may feel dry at first, but thinking in terms of pages will give you clarity.

While you may not be a designer, what I usually recommend is that you have a Google Doc or word file with the sections and content that you want from each page.

Again, having something like this, will speed up the work of the design agency by a lot. We typically help our clients review the copy of the website, provide feedback to it (e.g. how do you improve for SEO to rank on Google) and then we use it for the first mockup.

Since we see that many clients get a bit stuck on this step, at Sparkr we also provide a template they can use to organise the copy of their website, with guidance for the copy.

If you want to download our website template copy kit you can do it here (for B2B websites).

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What platform will the website use? (CMS)

This one sparks endless debates. The truth: the best CMS is the one that matches your team’s skills and needs.

• WordPress: flexible, huge ecosystem of plugins, but can get bloated and security-heavy.
• Webflow: clean, design-friendly, easy for marketing teams to update without developers.
• HubSpot CMS: great if you’re already deep in HubSpot’s CRM/marketing stack.
• Custom: sometimes needed for complex platforms, but usually overkill for SMEs.

Ask yourself who will maintain the website, how often and what kind of integrations you need. What I often recommend clients is to go for platfomrs that are widely used and good for security. Webflow and WordPress the best choices.

Your choice here affects not just launch, but the daily life of your marketing team.

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How to avoid common web design pitfalls

Website redesigns fail all the time, usually because of these traps:

• Tanking your SEO: launching without redirects or ignoring existing rankings is the fastest way to disappear from Google.

• Launching and forgetting: a shiny new site with no maintenance plan is a ticking time bomb.

• Scope creep and endless revisions: unclear goals and too many stakeholders can drag a project forever.

Pro tip: lock scope early, plan SEO migrations carefully, and set rules for revisions.

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What’s next after the website relaunch

You usually want to define what kind of support you’ll receive after your website is live. Will you get ongoing support for hosting, do you need an ongoing design and development capacity or will you just get help and that’s it?

These are all things you want to check with your partner and perhaps ask for a quote that includes also how it would be if they offer you ongoing support.

If you don’t have an in-house team that takes care of the maintenance and security of your website, you want to have that as a minimum.

At Sparkr, we usually offer packages that range from of simple maintenance and security to a dedicated number of design and development hours per month, to ongoing SEO optimisation.

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Conclusion

A website redesign can either be a money pit or a growth engine. The difference is preparation.

Know your goals, audit what you’ve got, pick the right partner, and think beyond launch. Done right, your new website will look better and drive results for years.

If you're curious to know how we can help, feel free to reach out for more info.

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