People who view many websites can almost instantly recognize out-of-date design features. Like we are excavating a rock deposit, we can see a dancing pixelated gif here from the 90s, rows of neat, barely-formatted text from the early 2000s, and on up through the most ultra-modern, scrollable, high-resolution-image sites. There is something fundamental about a website redesign that does bring value to your company, if only because the site doesn’t instantly make people wonder, “when was this last updated?”

That being said, website redesigns are costly in time and resources, so they should be undertaken with clear intent and a variety of goals to achieve. If you hope that a website facelift will boost your business, you should consider how you can make the most of this expenditure and push for greater growth along the way. After all, eCommerce has become a core component of nearly every business’ strategy for new client acquisition, even if the actual sales process may happen offline. Use your website redesign as a chance for a killer first impression that does way more than just look nice.

Goal for Growth 1: Functional Website Showcases a Functional Business

Make sure that your website’s core design features aren’t pretty at the expense of usefulness. While a dated website has its own problems, it is ultimately better than a website that is so abstract that customers cannot find their way to a purchase option! Use your website redesign as a chance to do some serious usability testing: figure out where the eye is drawn on the website screen by having people unfamiliar with your company navigate around the site and report back their findings. Make sure that no new website is rolled out until you are confident that you’ve found seamless paths from any potential landing pages to your contact page or your purchase buttons.

Goal for Growth 2: More Buzz and a Better Reputation

A great website should, ultimately, gain you a reputation; if there is a way to time the website redesign with some other element, such as a relaunched product with new features or a new line of services or organization of services, you are more likely to get a wide variety of eyes on your lovely new logos and headlines. Making your website redesign into an event allows you to bid for buzz via social media and outreach to your e-newsletter subscribers, making launch day an important day for your loyal fan base as well as for your company itself. Ultimately, you want more than just a better, more cutting-edge reputation: you want to have that reputation among more potential leads and prospects. Turn your redesign into an event.

Goal for Growth 3: Retain and Increase Hard-Earned SEO Status

While revamping a website is a valuable goal, one of the core goals for growth is to not lose what you already have in the process of a redesign. Does your company already rank highly for various keywords in organic SEO searches? Maybe you’ve never intentionally worked to increase SEO rankings before, but you’ve taken the time to create valuable content for your viewers, perhaps content that has been under-viewed in the past. Do a content audit to understand what is already on your website, especially if it is complex, and work with your designers to ensure that there is a place in the redesign for the content your users expect and love. The goal is not a blank slate, but an elevation of all you’ve accomplished already in your work.

Goal for Growth 4: Best Website in the Industry Matters

If you haven’t taken the time to create useful content for your website that promotes SEO traffic and allows you to gain leads through Inbound Marketing, a website redesign is a great time to do that. Rather than tucking content away in a hard-to-find blog, create a resource center, or a magazine-style publication, or any of many strategies that have been used to put content front-and-center in your new website. Talk with the designers to see how they can make content offers, such as white papers or eBooks, pop up in a modern and sleek way that prompts new visitors to connect with you and receive valuable information in return. Make your website the point source for information about your industry; having the best resource materials on your blog is just the first step toward being the go-to leader in your industry.

Designers drawing website UX app development. User experience concept.

Goal for Growth 5: Use Content to Educate and Inform Customer Base

Your content goals don’t have to stop at being the best among a variety of your competitors. Instead, you can use your content marketing documents as a way to lead your customers to your product. Perhaps your marketing team has identified a group of potential buyers who would love your product but don’t know it exists. Creating adjacent content and micro-landing pages that are attuned to a super-specific audience can be one strategy for making your website into an education tool that leads people to see your product as relevant to themselves and their goals. Your website redesign is a great time to re-imagine who you want to find your website and create a coherent design for your main pages as well as a variety of satellite pages or landing pages along the way. Keeping designers and content marketers in the loop together can lead to a harmonious website that reaches a wide variety of potential customers.

Clearly, not everything can happen at once when you are working to build a business growth strategy, but a website redesign is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on a splashy new look as a time to make other proactive moves as well. When you get different teams talking, you may find that others were hoping for a way to build excitement about their new launch or update, and the website redesign is a perfect time to collaborate across the company. Ready to achieve your business goals while making your website look modern and useful? Reach out today for a web design quote!