Start Up Web Solutions

First evaluate your existing site

What benefits has your site brought you?

Has it reached your target clientele? Has it generated enquiries about your services or products? Do you have visitor statistics? Have you got any positive or negative feedback about its usefulness? About its look and feel? Overall, what are the main positive benefits your existing site has delivered?

What do you like most about your site?

Its design/colours/layout/graphic elements/images? Its ease of navigation? Its overall content? Any specific content or pages? The manner in which it communicates your message? Its easy maintenance? Its success in generating enquiries/sales? Check with your team/friends/clients what they like as well.

What are the main things wrong with your site?

The number of visitors it attracts? Problems experienced by visitors in finding the information they want? Incomplete content? Accessibility issues? Unsatisfatory search engine results? Uninspiring look and feel? The minimum contribution it makes to your business model? Lack of interactive functionalities (e.g. contact/feedback forms, forums, blogs, site search, downloads, subscriptions, online sales, maps etc)? Not being able to update it yourself or in house?

What about more specific things wrong with it?

Forms that don't work? Outdated content? Is the site slow to load? Do some pages load slower than others? Is it difficult to navigate through the site? Is it difficult to read? Are the colours wrong? Are there specific aspects visitors have complained about? Does it look different in different web browsers? Are there aspects that don't work at all in older or newer browsers?

Set a framework for the redesign

Redefine your site objectives

Check your evaluation of your existing site and decide whether its redesign will target the same or more ambitious objectives: prioritise the main benefits the redesign will bring you. Greater ease of use for visitors? More accessibility to attract widest spectrum of users? More effective and intuitive navigation and organisation of content? Revamped look and feel? More visitors from your target audience? A richer and more engaging user experience? Easier maintenance and updating of site? Faster loading pages?

Set a budget for the redesign

Be as realistic as possible: assess the key benefits the redesign should deliver and set these against the initial outlay. Remember the more ambitious the goals you set for the redesign, the more it might cost to achieve them. On the other hand, assume a standards-compliant accessible redesign will automatically improve search engine results, increase visitors and make you site load faster. Also factor in the proportion of content, look and feel aspects and effective functionalities that can be carried over from your existing site to help reduce the redesign costs.

Be clear on the needed extra functionalities

A successful redesign will often involve adding specific functionalities to your existng design, ranging from adding full content management capabilities to allow you to update and expand the site yourself to simply adding usable and well-designed forms. Use the knowledge you have gained from running your existing site to isolate those interactive features that will bring maximum benefits to you and to your target visitors.

How much time/effort can you contribute?

Achievement of redesign goals will often create the need for greater on-going input from the site owners, ranging from just answering more enquiry messages to daily site additions, product and order control, preparation of monthly newsletters and many other aspects. Decide if you or someone in your team will be mainly responsible for these increased demands of your site. Bear in mind a degree of technical learning or knowledge may be needed to fully realise the new potential

Set a timeframe for the redesign

Establishing a realistic but defined schedule for completion of the redesign will usually help everyone involved in the project to pan effectively. Remember to include your own required input in the redesign process, both for approval or amendment of the main stages and for preparation and delivery of new/revised content. But remember also that your existing site will be available up until the redesigned site is launched, so time pressure may not be as great as when setting up a new site

Define all specific requirements

Define look and feel of the redesign

Almost every redesign will include changes to the look and feel of your existing site - clearly determin how you want you redesigned site to look. Make a list of other sites of any kind that may be used as benchmarks for your new look. Make another list of sites in your own sector which look better and work better than your existing site. Note the main features of your chosen sites that appeal most to you. Set out colour requirements. If you already have a logo, does this also need an update? If you don't have a logo, do you now think one should be designed for your revitalised site?

What can be carried over from your old site?

Is the redesign to be mainly a tuning and updating of your existing site, or a completely new start? Bear in mind that, generally speaking, the more of your old site that can be re-purposed for use in the redesign, the lower you will keep redesign costs. But also be aware that however close your redesign concept is in appearance and content to you old site, there may be considerable work needed 'below the surface' in re-coding your existing site to bring it into line with modern web standards.

List the new functionalities required

Don't go mad and require every conceivable extra functionality you can think of - each new interactive feature you add in will normally add to the final cost of the redesign. Most redesigns, however, involve transforming an existing, largely static, site into something more dynamic and interactive. Always think in terms of what your new site needs to achieve its objectives, attract more visitors and provide a more enjoyable and focussed user experience.

Prepare an initial Redesign Brief

You might find our Design Brief for first site clients useful in this respect - download it here. Alternatively, write down all aspects of transitioning from your existing site to your new site, all your revised site goals, look and feel criteria, added functionalities and everything else you can think of that will make the difference you want in commissioning a redesign of your site

Get the advice of your web designers

Many older sites have serious underlying problems in their coding and overall architecture which limit their effectiveness, but may not be readily apparent to the site owners. So after you have set out your goals etc. for your redesign, get the advice of your chosen web designer on any other aspects that can be improved. As all redesigns will involve a degree of recoding, the benefits to be gained from expert recoding are well worth being aware of, especially as such benefits should be included in the basic redesign charges.