Recently, I told you why you might not want to redesign your website, so now it’s time to look at what are some good reasons to seriously look at a website redesign project.
Before getting into this, you might want to take a look at the acid tests and maybe make life a little quicker.
Once you’ve finished with “this one” be sure to check out part two of today’s article!
1. Your website has no clear goal
Would a visitor coming to your website for the first time know exactly what you wanted her to do when she got there? Would she see a clear, concise message right away? Would there be a clear call to action?
Or maybe it would be be a bit more complicated, maybe a whole lot of text, maybe a bit muddled.
When a user first arrives at a site, there should be clear headlines, concise body copy, and a clear call to action. The homepage for your website is like an advertisement, and should have the same basic pieces, headline, body copy, call to action. All of your navigation should be secondary to this. Text on the page is good, google likes it. Descriptive body text is best. Text that talks about your website and the products and services that you offer is better. If your an organization selling memberships, text that talks about your value proposition to your members is best.
Don’t waste pixels on graphics that don’t get your message across and don’t waste your breath on text that doesn’t drive your user toward a goal.
2. Your Competition is Eating Your Lunch
When you look at the websites of your competitors, are you struck by how clearly they communicatie? How stylish they are? How much faster they are?
So are your customers.
If you’re scoping out the competition, odds are, your buyers* are too. The difference is that they won’t be looking for the subtle things that you do better than your competitors. They’ll be looking at how much better your competitors are overall, and will just buy directly from them, forgetting all about you.
So, while it’s good to focus on what you do well, and what your competitors can improve on (more on that in a later post), for the most part, you just have to make sure that they’re not miles ahead of you.
3. Are you tone-deaf?
Do you talk directly to your audience? Do you know who your audience is?
You site might have beautifully written prose, packed with references to Proust or perhaps to enlightenment era thinkers. If your website is selling Miley Cyrus memorabilia, you might have strayed a bit far from the mark.
Know your audience. Know what they like. Know what they find humorous. Know if they find humor something that can be easily injected into everyday situations.
Think Geek does a great job of knowing their audience. The Architect of the Capitol, less so.
Always be on the lookout for what resonates with your audience. If you can put yourself directly into their shoes, so much the better. If for some reason, you’re not able to (age gap, gender gap, whatever gap), develop a focus group and test your site and content on them when it comes time to redesign your website.
4. Your design tries too hard
Good design is timeless. Design that tries too hard looks dated after a year, and hopeless after three. This holds true for web design as well as it does for clothing design, architectural design, or vehicular design.
Put another way, there’s a very good reason that a good condition C2 Corvette will cost you over $100k, but a perfectly serviceable C4 can be had for under $10k.
You’ll know if your site looks dated. The next time you redesign it, please, please, please, try to stay away from the glitter coat, the targa top and the neon green leg warmers.
See reasons 5 through 9 in tomorrow’s entry!
* Throughout, I’m going to use terms like “buyers,” and “customers.” Regardless if you’re actually selling products to consumers on your website, you have buyers. Anyone whom you would like to have fulfill a goal when they come to your website is a customer.