10 reasons to justify a website redesign

Hello 2.0′ers,

Today we will be looking at the top 10 reasons you as a web designer or web developer can justify a website redesign either to a client, or for your own websites. I will also set a scale of how important it is to get the web design process right!

Please keep in mind that when we use the term ‘redesign’ it doesn’t necessarily mean graphic redesign! It could stand for a graphic redesign incorporating development changes (i.e. total overhaul), but i could also be basic or limited functionality/additions which are needed to the site - such as SEO or content changes to make your site better than what it is! So without further ado:

Top 10 reasons to justify a website redesign

10. Your page title is something like ‘New document’ or ‘Index’ or ‘Insert title here’ - or you do not have META description and keywords tags.

Big, big no no.. SEO-wise, not having META description and META keyword tags is a big sacrilege. It is very important that a page title, along with at lease those two META tags are present on all pages. Page titles should make sense to readers first, search bots second. Make sure you do not call your page ‘ways-to-make-money-online’ because that is what your human-URL/post slug is! A page title should be descriptive and above all give the user a run-down of what they can expect to find on that page.

On the topic of ‘Why XML rocks!’ for example, good sample page titles which include textual branding include:

a. ‘10 reasons why XML is king, online | Your blog name here’

b. ‘Extensible Markup Language: XML continues to deliver online | Your blog name here’

c. ‘How XML is changing the way businesses communicate | Your blog name here’

Having said that, make sure you don’t call your pages:

a. ‘Why XML rocks | Your blog name here’ - or;

b. ‘I love XML | Your blog name here’

The reason for this is that whilst some people might type ‘Why XML rocks’ in a search engine like Google, you stand to miss out on a lot more important key phrases such as: Extensible, Markup, Language, or ‘Extensible Markup Language’ (which is what XML stands for). If you notice my examples above, you will also see that you could potentially be missing out on a lot more important key phrases such as ‘online, businesses, communicate’.

9. Your site uses overlay graphics like snow falling or stars swirling or “insert shocking DHTML script here”

Oh my! Seriously? You’d be hard-pressed to list five benefits of doing this to your site! Excuses like ‘but the snow falling looks great in summer-time’ are not excuses at all! Anything that interrupts your readers/viewers from information they are trying to find or content they are trying to see is bad news! If you are hell-bent on getting into the festive season - put a Santa hat on your logotype or put a little spotlight under your side navigation with snow falling off that! Don’t use DHTML scripts from those free sites that apparently ‘bring your site to live’. They don’t help your SEO nor your rankings, nor the user experience - in my experience - at all!

8. Your website only works on Firefox/Internet Explorer/Safari

Your web presence should run in at least the two prominent browsers; Internet Explorer and Firefox. Generally speaking, most sites that run Internet Explorer and Firefox should also run in Safari, and Firefox for Mac. It will be to your advantage to get your site working in at least Firefox and Internet Explorer, but metrics such as Google Analytics will be able to help you in deciding what to target. Cross-browser testing is important in making sure users with different setups can access your information.

7. Most of the site is mostly made of graphics or flash

Flash is not search engine optimization’s best friend! The problem with flash sites is that unless there is a HTML-version which search bots can crawl for keywords and content; everything in terms of content, imagery, text, etc is embedded inside the flash file. Google might know that there is a file called ‘homepage.swf’, but this means nothing because all the information which is getting fed into flash is not being crawled. This is the same deal if your content or text is an image which is just sitting pretty on a background; ultimately Google might crawl the image itself, but will definitely miss the 50 or so words that are written ‘on’ the image itself. Don’t risk it!

Text should be text - images are solely for graphics or photos or a logo for example. There are still ways to work-around things that have to be images; such as your logo. An alt tag for example is important on images as well as possible over-layed text in a <h1> for example which is out of the user’s view so your logo does not get blocked.

6. Your website suffers from a very high bounce rate

A bounce rate is simply the number of visitors entering and leaving your site on the same page. So if a visitor clicks on your site from another site and then after viewing what you had to offer decided to leave - that would be considered a ‘bounce’. A high bounce rate is a tell-tale sign that you might need to redesign your content/pages. In most cases, simply moving content around (a different IA strategy) helps a lot - but there are circumstances when you cannot even do that due to the way the website has been put together.

Keep in mind that bounce rates being high aren’t always a bad thing! For example, checking the culprit of your bounce rate sometimes helps.

Here’s a scenario: a user Google’s the terms ‘How to clear your cache in Internet Explorer’. Obviously, that user just wants the answer and does not know that ‘Control+F5′ clears your cache in IE. Your landing page, for whatever reason, has the exact same question with the answer. Lucky for you, you are number one in Google’s search results page for the term, and the user clicks on your site.

Cool news is that you have got another (possible) unique hit! Bad news is - at this time, the user has got what he or she was looking for and closes the browser window! That didn’t help your bounce rate, but hey - you got your site out there to more bodies - and that has to count for something!

My point is, sometimes a high bounce rate isn’t all non-satisfying, but there are always ways to drop it - which might lead to more hits towards your inner pages; the not-so-easy places to get visitors to.

5. Content is not easy to find

Content not being easy to find is a big problem. Make sure that you have a search on your site if you don’t have one at the moment. If you cannot make your own or your blog, etc does not come with one - use Google custom search - It is free and does the trick. However, please note that it is also important to make your content easy to find through a proper website structure and Information architecture. If you are getting complaints from your users that they are having problems finding information, or popular information is five clicks away - then you should be considering an updated site structure and possibly a redesign!

4. Your site is built on frames

Eeek! Frames are so Web 0.02 it’s not funny! Unless there is an absolute dire need to use frames - and generally speaking there isn’t.. Do not use them! (We have DIV’s and overlays these days!).

Let’s just say search engines don’t have a ball indexing a web site that is stuck in a frame or a frameset. In fact, Google mentions this in the Google Webmaster Help Center. if you have to use a frame on your blog or site for whatever reason, use the “NoFrames” tag to provide alternate content.

3. Your website looks like these:

Let’s just say - if your website looks like the sites above (click images to maximize!) - then you’re in desperate need of a redesign! And that doesn’t just involve a re-structure of your content!

2. Users complaining about bad navigation

“Apparently bad navigation doesn’t help your website these days” - that’s what a friend of mine said blatantly to me yesterday when we were chatting about his website! Well, thank you for that amazing revelation mate!

Navigation can make or break a site! Good navigation gives the user a clear, direct and rapid path to where they are trying to get to. Ultimately, keeping the user in mind when designing navigation is of utmost importance!

Think of it this way - just because you think your ‘about’ section is important doesn’t mean that your visitors do. They may want a quick way to access search (to look for products), or more importantly, the product range itself!

The best way to come up with good navigation is to work out what you are ultimately trying to achieve out of your website. Is it up there as a transactional site? Is it there just as an information-rich directory? Who is your target market/audience and what will they be looking for?

There are a lot of questions to be answered here and the process cannot happen overnight. Do some testing, ask around about what people currently think of your navigation - make it happen! Good old Google may find your linked information ten-levels deep (Yikes!) into your site - but your user’s most probably won’t!

1. Your website is no longer ‘doing anything’ for you or your business

At the end of the day, your website is supposed to be your business’ leading edge - an online store or entity which is available 24/7 365 days a year! Technology changes so fast these days it’s really hard keeping up!

If your website is no longer performing as you expect or your metrics are showing you numbers you never hoped to see; such as a consistent drop-off percentage, less click-throughs, high bounce rate, etc. then maybe you need to look at the reasons why this is happening.

If it turns out your site/blog is just suffering from the good old ‘left-behind syndrome’ then perhaps an update/redesign is what it needs to revive it!

Things you should be on the look out for include key phrases (ending in ‘ability’!) such as:

a. Accessibility - Making your site usable by everyone, including those with disabilities or restrictions

b. Usability - How easy it is for users to meet their goals using your site.

c. Findability - How easily found your site is using search engines.

d. Visibility - The position of your site in search engines or directories.

There we go! another one down. Hopefully you guys have picked up a thing a two here today and you can take it forward with you for when you do decide to redesign your website. Share this page with a friend (below) or add to digg/del.icio.us if you feel so inclined

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