If you’re reading this blog, your company is probably considering a website redesign. There are a number of reasons why you might be inclined to revamp your site, but there’s a lot more to it than reaching out to your developer and kickstarting the project. When it comes to your company website, there are a lot of factors to consider: the aesthetic look and feel, navigation and usability, mobile responsiveness, the ability to integrate with other platforms and tools, the content, functionality, search engine friendliness, conversion rate optimization, and dozens of other factors. With all of these factors on the line, why would you leave your website redesign up to just your web developers? Your marketing agency should also be an integral part of your web redesign process, as they have extensive knowledge in these key areas and also have a solid grasp on the ins and outs of your existing website.
Before diving into your web redesign, consider the following:
Dig Into the Root Cause of Poor Performance
Businesses are often quick to redesign their company website if performance is poor. Whether your traffic is down, conversion rates are low, or online sales are declining, there’s often an underlying reason for the poor performance. Work with your marketing agency to dig into your website performance to uncover the root cause of your issue. In many cases, this deep dive opens the door for less costly solutions to fix the problem. Perhaps the issue can be resolved by fixing the current site rather than starting over. Your marketing agency has experience in identifying website optimization tactics which may keep your business from having to undergo a full redevelopment.
Bottom line: Your marketing agency can tell you what’s causing poor performance on your website and make unbiased recommendations on how to resolve the problem.
Leverage Your Agency’s Experience
If your marketing agency helps your business determine that a web redesign is the best course of action, leverage their experience with various tools and platforms to help you design a better site.
Does your business sell products online? Pick your agency’s brain about which eCommerce platform is best for you and your target audience. Looking to make content tweaks down the road internally? Talk to your agency about which content management system (CMS) is the right fit for your website and company.
Bottom line: Your marketing agency knows the pros and cons of many different marketing tools and platforms — work as a team to choose the ones you need.
Get More Accurate Quotes Right Off the Bat
Since your marketing agency knows which tools and capabilities your website will need, they may have a wishlist of their own in order to achieve a site they feel confident will help you rank and convert visitors. Identifying what those items are upfront will help you get more accurate quotes from web developers and ensure you’re accounting for everything you need in your new website.
Bottom line: Talk to your agency before collecting quotes and RFPs from web developers to get a more accurate pricing and possibly save money!
Sit Back and Relax
Your marketing agency likely has a lot of experience working with web developers to redesign websites. Beyond achieving a creative and aesthetically appealing website, your website needs to follow best practices to reach top positions in search engines and convert visitors into leads. Here’s why you’ll want your marketing agency to be involved in your web redesign:
Maintain Your Ranking
A newly designed website can often negatively affect your organic search rankings. This is because many of the SEO implications that were incorporated into your old site get left out during the redesign. Your marketing agency knows the ins and outs of your website and SEO strategy and will know how to handle redirects and on-page elements to ensure you don’t lose your ranking.
Achieve a Conversion-Driving Layout
There’s no doubt that website development has evolved over the years. We’re seeing a more minimalistic look with infinite scrolling and strategic elements incorporated to guide the reader through the conversion funnel. But sometimes web designers can get caught up in the aesthetic aspect of your site and overlook the functionality of it from a conversion standpoint.
Conversion-driving elements will look different for every company, and it’s far easier to work them into the initial development phase than to add all of your calls to action and keyword-optimized copy after the redesign. That way, your marketing agency will be able to ensure your layout is optimized for usability, and your navigation is optimized to convert more traffic.
Optimize Landing Pages
Web designers and developers may be able to create unique-looking landing pages that include the basics like forms and H1/H2 tags, but will the layout include elements that convert your particular audience? Is your web agency familiar with your ad campaigns? Do they know which elements of your landing page to include and which to leave out? Probably not.
Your web designer needs to work hand in hand with your marketing agency to ensure that your landing page strategy is implemented on each landing page to maximize conversions.
Here’s a classic example where businesses end up spending additional money on landing page revisions: Your ad agency knows that an ad that appears in Google’s search results should link to a landing page that includes your navigation. This is often the first interaction a business has with a visitor and they shouldn’t need to go searching for a logo to find out which site they’re on. But web designers that are familiar with marketing principles tend to strip out navigation in order to keep the visitor focused on the goal. So in the end, the company has to create another version of the landing page template. This isn’t an expensive revision, but these things can add up quickly, and are a perfect example of why your marketing agency shouldn’t be kept in the dark.
Make Marketing Campaign Adjustments
Your landing pages and their corresponding ads will need to be redesigned to reflect your new website. Timing is crucial, so be sure your advertising agency is in the loop so they can make changes as the website layout evolves. They can also retool the ad to better reflect any new content that is on the website.
There’s no sense in redesigning your site and then incorporating marketing and conversion best practices after the fact. Your marketing agency can have valuable insight into your entire web redesign and might even save you from a full revamp. Just keep them in the loop! Go ahead–give them a call.
