Website Relaunch: How can it become a success?

Website Relaunch: How can it become a success?

Introduction

Planning to relaunch your website, but still not sure how to make it successful? You are probably not the first person to have this apprehension, and it is quite understandable too. The problem is that you need people to visit your website, and you want them to stay there, convert and become loyal customers. People really do have the shortest attention span, especially when it comes to so many options in websites. They probably visit your website for seconds before they take off. Well, sometimes, it is not even seconds, it could be milliseconds. That’s the time they take to form an opinion about your website. So if you are still running with a website that doesn’t do much to keep people attracted, then it’s time you thought about a full-fledged relaunch. 

Importance of website relaunch 

Once you make the decision to relaunch your website, the work will have to move swiftly. With the website relaunch, you will have to make the website- new and improved. It has to appeal to the users (visually appealing), factually accurate, contemporary design, smooth user experience and fully functional. If your site doesn’t meet the above mentioned parameters, then there is no doubt that it has to go for a website relaunch. 

The cornerstone of developing a better website than the one you already have is Research. You cannot just copy and paste old content into the new page and say that you are relaunching the site. Everything has to be fresh. With the right approach, you will be able to drive yourself into the conversation that’s happening. That’s why research is so important.

Importance of Research 

With proper research, you will be able to develop a website that can be seen and heard. Make sure that your message is not getting lost in translation. You cannot just inundate your customers with messages, emails and notifications, each time they open their devices. You want them to perceive your presence and get the right information at the right time. 

Base the research on the client perspective. That’s why the word is known as ‘Research’. You can re-search your existing content, and see what is relevant, and what is not. The content should be only what your client wants to see. In your existing website, which is the page that gets the most visits? That could be something that they like. Which is the page that gets the least visits?  These are some questions that you can analyse before planning the relaunch. 

Since relaunching the website is an important marketing tactic, it is important to keep the content fresh, new and exciting. And it is also important to choose a content management system that works well with all devices, especially cell phones and tablets.  

Consider these factors before going ahead with the website launch

While you are in the research stage, there are a few other things to consider to ensure that you are on the right track with the website relaunch. Check 

them out:

1. Your website, in terms of performance

Are people converting? They might be visiting your website, but do they stay and visit the pages, and do they approve of it? Is the website generating revenue? Do the visitors interact with the contact form? 

2. How well do you know the user personas and their behaviour

When you know your target group, you can build personas that relate to them. But how well do you know the target personas? What are their main needs? What motivates them? What is their emotion? Are you ready to do user tests with real clients? 

3. Is the design system working on all devices?

How responsive is your design system? Is it consistent and responsive over various devices? Does the entire website match customer expectations? Is it aesthetic and meets customer expectations? 

4. What would your technical relaunch be like?

You have to consider whether the CMS that you use is still something that is in vogue, and that you enjoy working with it. If you are planning to have landing pages to target different personas how would you be setting it? Also consider the important URLs that you want to create for SEO. 

Get down to business by actually relaunching the website

So, now that you have considered all these factors, it would be easy to plan the next steps. 

The work on the website

When the work on the website happens, the first thing to consider would be the user experience or the website’s visibility on search engines. It is not just the design aspect, it will also be all about the main outline and structure of the website, and other technicalities. Here is a breakdown of things that you have to do when reworking on the website:

• A list of new pages that you want to add to the website
• Adding new links to the pages so they will be easy to navigate
• Make clear cut actions that users need to take for each page
• Having a knowledge centre so the users can gain valuable information about your product offerings
• Identify low performing pages, and remove them or improve them

Clear guideline for the design

This is one of the critical elements of the website – having a design guide. Identify the main design elements of the website like spacings, fonts and colours. This should be crafted by keeping in mind the user/buyer persona. Some points to consider:

• Mobile-friendly and user responsive design
• Unique user-interface
• Revise the brand style guide and improve the overall front-end experience 

Setting benchmarks is a point to consider

Before relaunching the website, you have to set certain benchmarks by analysing the current traffic, the average time a person spends on the website, including signups, conversions and the bounce rate. You can analyse these with the present websites and set new ones. It would also help in analysing and checking competitor websites because it would help record the KPIs. It would also help gauge:

• The traffic they attract
• The strategies they use
• The content they use for social media channels

Once you collect all this data, it would help analyse your current metrics and identify the loopholes. If it lags behind, you will know how far it lags behind. 

Conclusion

Before relaunching the website, it is mandatory to perform A/B testing on all platforms and devices to ensure that the new device is responsive and works well in all devices. It will also ensure that the website will work well with the same speed and the text and images works well, with excellent resolution and clarity. You can entrust the task to in-house developers or go for the easier option of outsourcing the task to developers who can perform the task with perfection.

Interesting Links:

5 Important Steps for a Successful Website Relaunch

More information about Website Relaunch

Pictures: Canva

The author: Sascha Thattil works at Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.