Within marketing there are two parallels; design and strategy. Marketing is a balance in this sense, between applying design to attract and deploying strategic initiatives to drive ROI. When these concepts are used together your marketing is elevated.
Every successful marketing plan is backed by a mix of strategies, compelling designs and a whole lot of research. This successful formula should also be used during website redesigns. We say this because we’ve seen business after business prioritize design over research and when this is done, your website simply is not the success it could be. Before any design is assigned to a website the strategy should be fully established. Below we’ll go into detail on exactly what research should be undertaken to form the basis of your strategy for your website redesign.
Establish a history of your current website's performance, this will help you to mark areas of success, like the most frequently visited pages, and areas of improvement, poor bounce rates or poor times on site. You can use Google Analytics to compile this information and other CRM tools like HubSpot analytics. This will allow you to set priorities and benchmarks moving forward.
Your website should be designed for your customers. It should be easy to navigate and should have content that speaks to their needs. You are able to write better, more effective content when you have done the research to find out exactly who you are talking to. We call this creating buyer personas. Buyer personas is an exercise that defines your ideal customer by pinpointing a number or things that influence buyer decisions like demographics, online behaviours, motivations and concerns. Once you know who you are selling to, you can create your website's content and design to better sell to them.
Uncover their successes and their weaknesses and capitalize on them. Doing competitor research helps you understand your market, how you currently compare, and what you can do to stand out and improve.
If your current website was not built with an SEO strategy in mind, it is essential that you undertake one during your websites redesign. You want to be found on Google and in order to do so a strong SEO strategy is your best chance. Once you have compiled keyword research you can pinpoint what keywords you would like to go after on each website page and build your content out from there. To learn more about the importance of SEO click here.
When you invest your time into research the product you are creating is done so strategically. Valuing research over design at the beginning of your website redesign process will allow you to have a website that works best for your business. Now with the above being said, you do not have to sacrifice design at all, when you've completed your research and formed a strategy you will be prepared to make better decisions for your design. Find the delicate balance between beautiful design and heavy-hitting research when you work with Hughes & Co. Let's get started.