5 Things You Need to Know Before You Redesign Your Website

what you need to know before you redesign your website

People generally fit into one of two groups when it comes to web design. Group one wants to design their website once and never touch it again. That group is wrong, and thankfully, is rapidly shrinking. Group two wants to continually change their website, often including a complete redesign every year. That group is also wrong.

Most people should redesign their website every few years. There are a few reasons behind this:

Branding and goals

Your website needs to reflect your current brand, and that may change over time. This is something you should evaluate every 6-12 months.

It’s equally important to make sure your website aligns with your goals.

A while back, I had a client who generated most of their revenue by selling their services, which were not very profitable or scalable. They wanted to begin selling more of their self-study training courses, which were much more profitable and infinitely scalable. The problem was that their website emphasized their services, and they refused to let us change the emphasis to their courses, so, as you probably imagined, nothing changed.

Don’t be afraid to take a short-term hit to achieve a long-term goal.

Design trends

Your website needs to reflect current design styles. It’s not a matter of being trendy, though—it’s a matter of meeting the expectations of your visitors. If you’re website is stuck in the previous decade, visitors will think, either consciously or subconsciously, that your business practices are too.

You don’t need to jump on every design trend, but you do need to stay up to date.

Technology

Do you remember all those “cutting-edge” Flash-based websites that were popular in the late 90s? If you’re wondering why you don’t see them around anymore, it’s because they sucked!

Sure, they offered features that couldn’t be achieved with HTML and CSS at the time, but search engines couldn’t crawl or index their content, so they didn’t rank in organic search, and they came with a plethora of usability problems—visitors were forced to wait through intro animations, they couldn’t use the back button, and it was impossible to bookmark individual pages. What once seemed like pure magic, is now a catastrophe.

magic?

More recently, responsive design has become a necessity due to the massive increase in mobile traffic over the last few years. This has rendered most of the websites online today virtually obsolete. People can still access them, but Google will not rank them as highly as a comparable websites that are responsive, and visitors are more likly to leave a website that isn’t responsive.

What answers do you need before redesigning your website?

Before you start sketching ideas or even talking to web designers, it’s absolutely critical that you have clear answers to the following questions:

Why does my brand exist?

Your brand forms the foundation of your business, influences the culture, and determines who it attracts.

Apple makes technology simple, Ramsey Solutions creates financial freedom, and Glock builds reliable handguns. All of these companies do a lot of things, but they have one single reason to exist.

What is your brand’s reason to exist?

Who is my ideal customer?

You shouldn’t target just anyone willing to pay for your products or services. You should only target people who will be passionate about your brand. (Yes, that means you’ll turn some people off.)

You need to figure out who can’t live without what you provide. For Moz, it’s search engine optimization professionals. For The Art of Charm, it’s people who are dedicated to self-improvement. And for Cigars and Sea Stories, it’s fellow veterans who place tremendous value on our brotherhood.

Figuring out who this is will play a huge role in redesigning your website because you’re redesigning it specifically for them.

What is my primary goal?

A website designed to sell a service will be very different than a website designed to sell a product, so it’s critical determine your primary goal. Once you know the answer to that, nearly all efforts need to push towards that singular goal—I don’t mean 51/49%, I mean 85/15% or more.

Why should someone chose my company over a competitor?

Skip the ambiguous fluff like “we’re the best,” or “we provide superior customer service,” and instead, identify quantifiable reasons.

One of our clients, Hospitality Environments, which sells luxury beds to 4 and 5-star hotels, is an excellent example of this. Instead of simply saying they have the best beds, they present medical research conducted by several world-renowned hospitals confirming that their beds improve circulation and healing, help people fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and sleep more deeply. And rather than telling hoteliers that guests would be willing to pay more for a room equipped with their beds, they present independent data from major hotels like Hilton, Radisson, and Marriott, showing that they do.

Why should someone chose your company? Give them clear, quantifiable, and objective reasons throughout your new website.

Who are your top 3 competitors?

If you had a dollar for every time I heard a client say “we don’t have any competitors,” I would be sitting on a beach, retired already.

Everyone has competitors, even if no other companies offer the exact same products or services as you. So you have to only burger restaurant in town that sells 100% free-range burgers on gluten-free, organic buns? Great! But until everyone in town knows that, and they know why it matters, you’re still competing with every other burger place in town. And even people who know that your product is superior may not be willing or able to pay more for it.

So, yes, you always have competitors.

If you can talk to old prospects, try to find out which company they chose over yours and why. That information will be priceless.

What do our clients say about Spartan Media?

We could talk all day about how awesome we are, but we know you’d rather hear what our clients think, so here’s what they have to say about what we’ve done for them and the impact it’s had on their businesses.

Kim Kiyosaki

Kim Kiyosaki

Co-founder, Rich Dad Company

Jeremy’s strength is matching your message with the most effective media outlets and spot on audience demographics. He is very strategic, extremely diligent, does all the heavy lifting, and he makes you look good. If you want PR results that go above and beyond, then I’d definitely go with Spartan Media.

Matt Andrews

Matt Andrews

Entrepreneur, Investor, Venture Capitalist

I own multiple businesses in the real estate and marketing spaces and the only PR team that I’ll use is Spartan Media. It’s really important that I get exposure in the right media outlets and that’s exactly what Jeremy and the team at Spartan Media help me do. They are the best in the industry and I highly recommend working with them.

Christina Krause

Christina Krause

Founder, Postal Impact

I can’t tell you how many times someone has said, “I saw an article about your company and it reminded me to circle back to you.” That has been a really interesting component of our relationship. We certainly have increased our presence, but it’s really interesting how many people we already know that have reached out to do business with us directly as a result of seeing us featured in the media.

Dr. David Phelps

Dr. David Phelps

CEO, Freedom Founders

Working with Spartan Media has been a real pleasure. They make the connections, craft talking points, and always make sure I’m prepared—and they do all the heavy lifting to make it easy for me. So we get it together, it’s efficient, it’s dialed in, and it makes me show up as an expert. Credibility and authority is everything in today’s space and Spartan Media does it better than anybody else. 

Tatiana Zagorovski

Tatiana Zagorovski

Founder, Trio Realty Partners

Working with Spartan Media has completely transformed the way people see me and my business. They’ve helped me get in front of the right audiences and share my ideas and expertise across the nation—and the results have been incredible. I’m now being recognized as a trusted authority in my industry, and people are reaching out to me because of the exposure and status they’ve created for me.

Jason Keyz

Jason Keyz

CEO & Principal Broker, KEYZ Group

I don’t have the time to reach out to the media, and it’s one of those things where if you actually tried to reach out yourself, you’d be met upon deaf ears anyway. So working with the team at Spartan Media, that specializes in exactly this and does it on a daily basis, is the best way to go. Plus, their white glove treatment is exactly what you need because it let’s you focus on running your business.

Nicole Espinosa

Nicole Espinosa

CEO, The Short Sale Queen

My experience with Spartan Media has been amazing! I’ve been featured in Inman, Entrepreneur, Benzinga, Fox Business, and so many more because of them, and that’s opened a lot of doors for me. They do a great job of positioning you and helping you craft the perfect message. I totally appreciate that because I think as entrepreneurs, we often feel like we know everything.

Trey Taylor

Trey Taylor

Founder, Trinity Blue Consulting

I love that while I’m focusing on what I do best, Spartan Media is consistently getting me featured in the media. This helps give me more exposure, but more importantly, helps me to be seen as more authoritative in my industry, so more deals come my way and I close them faster and more easily. I feel that Spartan’s PR services are one of the best investments you can make as an entrepreneur.

Ready to get featured in the media?

If you’re already an expert, we think you deserve to be recognized as one—and to be blunt, your prospects deserve to find and work with you instead of your less qualified competitors who just happen to be better at promoting themselves. So get in touch to see if you qualify.

Authority Declassified