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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.

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Introduction

Website redesigns and online marketing go hand in hand. You can’t 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 you’ll drive traffic to it, how you’ll 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 won’t 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. You’re 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. Don’t treat it like one!

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Questions to Ask Before Your Website Redesign

GoalsYou 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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 3

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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 4

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: It’s 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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 4

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 aren’t on your website that you’d 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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 5

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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 6

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” you’d 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• Don’t 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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 7

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 doesn’t 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 Do’s and Don’ts 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 http://www.rickwhittington.com T 804-335-1477! 8

Next Steps

Is your website redesign equipped for success?

If you’re going to approach your website redesign from a goal-centered, inbound marketing perspective, it’s important to not only consider the artistic aspects of a redesign.

We start marketing-focused website redesigns with an analysis and goal setting exercise. I’m extending that offer to you. If you’ve read the questions in this document and wonder how you’ll set measurable goals for your website redesign, we can help.

We’re 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 that’s seen over $400 million of capital investment since 2009. Then there’s 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.

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I want to offer you a free website consultation. Let’s get you started off on the right foot with a competitive assessment, free of charge.

This is not a sales call, and there’s 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 Whittingtonrick@rickwhittington.com804-335-1477

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