Website re-builds

90% of our web projects are now re-builds, and it’s the best kind! Use the history and knowledge you’ve generated with your current website to improve the next incarnation.

So where do you start?

Define your goals

It sounds obvious but it easily gets missed. Think about what you want your website to do, include both what it’s doing now and what it needs to do more of. Do you need to increase enquiries, drive more conversions or re-align your core principles and brand image?

Analytics

This is the most important part, it will tell you how your website is actually performing and what your users are doing, not just your assumptions. Ask your website developer to help you pick out the best things to look for.

N.B. If you don’t already have Google Analytics running on your site, install them now and gather some data, it will only take your web developer a few minutes and will definitely be worth it.

Ask the audience

You can often be too close to your website and your business to look at it objectively, it’s something we’re all guilty of and difficult to get away from, so ask others. Preferably within your target audience, but even friends and family can give some interesting views as long as they’re honest! Providing a short list of simple questions will ensure you get the feedback that’s important to you. There are lots of survey platforms that are free and easy to set up which will help you distirbute your survey and collate the responses.

Are your goals still right?

Check your goals against all the research you’ve done and feedback you’ve gained, and adjust them if you need to. Ensure you make use of all the work you've done.

Produce a brief

It’s called a ‘brief’ for a reason. Don’t make it too prescriptive because the website designers and developers are the experts, they just want to know some basic facts:

1. Your existing website URL.
2. Any preference of CMS platform - don’t worry if you don’t have one but most developers specialise in a type of code or platform, so if you have something in mind let them know.
3. Functionality - These are the bits that make the difference to a quote, whether existing or planned, include forms, videos, blogs, interactive applications, e-commerce, third party integration (with CRMs, portals etc.)
4. Content - is the content on your current site (amount and types of pages) a good guide for the re-build or will it be dramatically increased or decreased. If it's dramatically changing, producing a new siteplan is helpful, but a good website partner will help you with this during the quote process.
5. Budget - A lot of people don't like disclosing a budget, but if you've requested multiple quotes you'll see if anyone has just hit the top end for the sake of it. It simply helps reduce time wasted in waiting back for huge proposals that are out of your price range. A good agency will offer what they can do for that price, even if your brief is a bit over ambitious.

Choosing an agency

Picking the cheapest quote or the agency with the most high-profile clients isn't always the right avenue to take. If your company website is an important tool you may well be working with this web team on a daily basis. So make a shortlist and meet with them, see where they work and the kind of team dynamic they have. You're looking for someone who takes the time to understand your business, who has offered practical advice about your proposed project and who appears honest and trustworthy.

Let them do the hard work

You've done the hard part, now sit back and let the web team lead you to online success. You're paying them for their expertise so make the most of it and listen to their advice. If you're not quite sure about some of the proposed ideas, ask for the thinking behind them, there's always method to the madness and sometimes it makes all the difference to understand that.