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Questions to Ask Before
Your Website Redesign
117 South 14th Street Suite 310 Richmond, VA 23219 804.335.1477
About the Author
Rick Whittington is the Principal and team
leader at Rick Whittington Consulting, a
web design and online marketing firm
located in Richmond, Virginia.
Rick was fortunate to start his career at the
Fortune 500 level as a web designer at
Circuit City. As the design team manager,
he oversaw website creative, started a
usability testing practice and managed a $5
million advertising budget. He helped conceptualize a rudimentary web
analytics system before Google Analytics existed, aimed at measuring the
effectiveness and messaging of display advertising. In 2003, he oversaw a
major redesign of the Circuit City website which helped the Direct division
gross over $1 billion in sales before his departure in 2004.
Rick started RWC in 2007, and the company has seen over 25% growth per
year by practicing what we preach, even in a tough economy.
Today, RWC designs websites and executes online marketing plans for
companies in a diverse range of industries and markets. While the company
has won several industry and advertising awards, their primary focus is
getting measurable outcomes for clients.
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Introduction
Website redesigns and online marketing go hand in hand. You cant have a
great website redesign without considering brand positioning, differentiation
and perhaps most importantly, how you want your target customer to interact
with your company via your website.
Before you redesign your website, you have to consider how youll drive traffic
to it, how youll convert visitors to leads, and how to leverage your website in
your marketing efforts. Companies often redesign websites for the wrong
reasons, like to make it look better aesthetically. If you redesign with only
intentions of improving aesthetics, the newness wears off and business
wont pick up, leaving you frustrated and on average about $15,000 poorer.
The only way to successfully redesign is to think of your website as a
salesperson. Think of redesigning your website as hiring a new salesperson
a superstar with high expectations. Youre going to make an investment in a
new website, and the website has to be responsible for paying you back
many times over for the investment. The website should have performance
goals just like a new salesperson would, and performance should be
measured regularly.
Your website is not an art project. Dont treat it like one!
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Questions to Ask Before Your Website
Redesign
Goals
You should have concrete goals for your website, and
ideally these are lead and revenue based.
1. Who are your customers? What are the different
characteristics of your target audiences that will
need to be considered during the redesign?
2. What are your customers goals for visiting your
website?
3. How will you define success? What will make a successful website? Is it
an increase in website traffic? An increase in sales leads? More phone
calls? Automating your marketing?
4. How much revenue should your website be responsible for each month?
5. How many sales leads do you need to reach revenue goals?
6. How many website visitors do you need to attract the number of leads you
need to reach revenue goals?
Resources and Suggested Reading
Website Accountability: Treat Your Website As a Profit Center for Marketing
and Sales Success
5 Inbound Marketing Considerations for Your Website Redesign
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Customers
1. What job roles are your customers usually in?
2. What knowledge and tools do your customers
use in their job?
3. In which industry or industries do your customers
work?
4. What does it take for your customers to be
successful in their job role?
5. What are your customers biggest challenges?
6. How do your customers learn about new information for their job?
7. What are your customers personal backgrounds? Think gender, age,
socioeconomic status, etc.
8. Do your customers tend to be extraverted or introverted? How do they
prefer to interact with vendors?
9. Are there certain things you say that your customers respond well to?
Resources and Suggested Reading
4 Steps to Building Rock-Solid Client Personas
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Company
1. What do you want your company to be known for?
2. If someone could only take away 3 things from your
website, what would they be?
3. What differentiators do your customers say you have
over competitors?
4. What are the top competitive advantages for your
company?
5. What are your company's weaknesses, both in structure, process and
delivery of product and service?
6. What companies are your competitors and why do you consider them
competitors?
7. Who will your company decision makers be? Who will be the tiebreaker if
there's disagreement? Note: Its a good idea to keep your project team
small. Have representatives from leadership, sales and marketing on your
project team.
Resources and Suggested Reading
A Four-Step Strategic Website Redesign Process
The Hidden Cost of a Website Redesign
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Content
1. Define the information you'll want on your website.
Make a bulleted list of things that you'll want to
include on your website.
2. What content currently on your website do you want
to keep?
3. What content currently on your website is no longer
needed?
4. Are there any topics that arent on your website that youd like to add?
5. Do you want comments on your blog, and should they be moderated?
6. How will you keep your website up to date? If you're blogging, then who
will update the blog?
Tip: Make a list of topics and a calendar so you'll have a plan for success.
7. You may re-launch your website with content that covers the basics, but
what is your plan to add to it over time?
8. Will you update the website in-house, or will you need help?
Tip: Many companies with a one person marketing staff simply don't have
the time to make changes to their websites. A content management
system will make it easy to make changes without code knowledge and
can actually make updating your website more efficient, even if a vendor
does this for you.
9. Will you need a content management system so you can make changes
in-house?
10. Who will write or edit your website content?
Fact: Website content preparation is the #1 thing that delays or derails
website redesign projects.
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Resources and Suggested Reading
Guide: How To Choose A Content Management System
Writing Website Content: Is There An Ideal Length for Web Page Content?
Finding Time to Add Content Marketing to Your Marketing Toolbox
Rick Whittington Consulting
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Design
1. Do you like anything in particular about your current
website?
2. What are some other websites you like (in your
industry or others), and why?
3. Does your company have brand standards to adhere
to?
4. Do you like or dislike certain colors?
5. What words would you use to describe the look youd like to achieve for
your new website?
6. What mobile devices will you plan to support with your website redesign?
7. Where will you get photography from?
Tip: Great photography enhances a website, no matter what industry
you're in. You'll need photographs that tell a story about your product or
service, not just pretty pictures.
Resources and Suggested Reading
Why Photography is an Important Consideration for Your Website Redesign
Mobile Commerce Trends Every Business Owner Needs To Know
Dont Ask a Web Design Firm for More Than One Design
5 Web Design Best Practices For a Truly Great Website
Should You Consider a Responsive Website Design?
Why Your Web Design Firm Doesn't Need to Be an Industry Specialist
Case Study: How to Make Good Web Design Decisions Using Analytical
Tools
Designing a Website is the Starting Line, Not the Finish Line
Rick Whittington Consulting
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T 804-335-1477!
Marketing
1. Are you sending people to your website from other
marketing vehicles?
2. Do you send direct mail pieces or have other
marketing collateral with "vanity URLs" that you need
to keep when the new website goes live?
3. Do you have landing pages that will need to be
redesigned on the new website?
4. Will you have new website addresses that will need to be changed inside a
a paid search campaign?
Tip: Google Adwords doesnt allow redirects or automatic hops from
one web address to another, so you will need to pause the ads during the
migration and change the URLs to match the new website after launch.
5. Will you be tracking phone call leads on your new website?
6. Will you need to process leads or route them to different sales people?
7. What are the key performance indicators that you'll measure to gauge
success? What tools will you use to collect these measures on a regular
basis?
8. Should you use marketing software like HubSpot to manage calls to
action, landing pages, blogging, email and reporting?
Resources and Suggested Reading
Website Redesign Tips: 10 Dos and Donts To Guarantee Success
Content Marketing Provides 123% Lift in Website Traffic
How One Unconventional Technique Can Help You Turn Web Leads into
Customers
Rick Whittington Consulting
[Link]
T 804-335-1477!
Next Steps
Is your website redesign equipped for success?
If youre going to approach your website redesign from a goal-centered,
inbound marketing perspective, its important to not only consider the artistic
aspects of a redesign.
We start marketing-focused website redesigns with an analysis and goal
setting exercise. Im extending that offer to you. If youve read the questions
in this document and wonder how youll set measurable goals for your
website redesign, we can help.
Were here to help. Website redesigns should have measurable business
impact. Just ask the medical practice whose website generated a patient
load that paid for their website redesign in just 32 days. Ask the economic
development organization thats seen over $400 million of capital investment
since 2009. Then theres the manufacturing company that sees 5 times the
number of leads they used to have after an inbound marketing website
redesign. Or the commercial real estate firm that doubled website traffic with
a website redesign and better SEO.
One of our commercial real estate clients has doubled website visits and shown steady growth
with a website redesign, an SEO strategy and a content strategy.
Rick Whittington Consulting
[Link]
T 804-335-1477!
I want to offer you a free website consultation. Lets get you started off on the
right foot with a competitive assessment, free of charge.
This is not a sales call, and theres no obligation. We do this because
we like to share information with others, and marketing-focused redesigns
make us happy.
Learn more about this competitive assessment here:
Rick Whittington
rick@[Link]
804-335-1477
Rick Whittington Consulting
[Link]
T 804-335-1477!
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