Replicating another website’s design is easy. While that may be appealing to new businesses, businesses who are looking to redesign or update their website should stray away from using that model as they limit your growth and expansion. 

That is why websites are not one size fits all. Many businesses have different needs and want for their websites so what may work for one business may not work for another. Careful planning and design are important to create a unique website that is tailored to your goals and your audience’s needs.  

What Should You Do Before Creating/Redesigning a Website? 

Every business is different in that they have different goals they want to achieve with their website. That means your website has to be tailored specifically to your needs. Before structuring your website for your business, you should do the following things.

Research

Before even creating or redesigning your website, ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish with your website and what goals you are trying to reach. These goals and objectives will help you devise somewhat of a plan to create your website in the direction you want. From there, you should find out what keywords to use as well as other potential SEO affecting factors to ensure that your website ranks highly on search engine indexes. 

Look At Your Current Site If You Have One

Perform a visual audit of your website as well as try out any of the tools you use for it to see how they perform. This audit of your website helps you see what has the potential to be improved, removed, or added. 

If You Don’t Have a Website, Look To Others For Inspiration

Sometimes, all you need is some inspiration to figure out exactly what you want. That applies to websites as well as there are many website designs out there. It may be hard to figure out what you want on your website if you don’t have an idea of what it may look like. This is where you should look at other websites and find out what you like from them and what you don’t like. 

Begin Structuring Your Website

Once you’ve researched what you want on your website and audited your current one, then you should have a solid plan to structure your website and begin the website design process. 

These steps are meant to help you create the structure you need for your website. Without a proper plan in place, then the structure of your website might end up causing a lot of confusion and frustration for your users as well as yourself. 

Structure Your Website‘s Design For Your Business

The plan you have for your website should help you greatly in structuring your website. Structuring your website is the easiest part of the website design process as all you have to do is implement what you went over in your plan. Of course, that is easier said than done since there are always problems that may arise as you are creating/redesigning your website. 

These problems can be a minor inconvenience at best, and a huge problem at worst. Be sure when you are structuring your website for your business that it is something that you and your audience can use free from frustration. The last thing you want for your website is for it to be unresponsive and full of errors and bugs. Don’t think you are finished with your website once it is completed as you also have to test it to ensure that it can smoothly operate. 

What to Consider When Creating/Redesigning Your Website?

When creating or redesigning your website, you have to consider a couple of things to make sure that it is doing its job. Without the right considerations, what is the point of creating/redesigning your website? Here are some things to consider in regards to your website. 

Who Is The Website For?

One of the most important things to consider for your website is knowing who exactly is it for? Is it for your business to use as a virtual help desk? Is it for your customers to use so they can purchase your products online? Knowing who the website is for can bring clarity to who you want visiting your website and using it to its full potential.  

What Content Do You Want On Your Website

Content is a big part of providing value for a website. Whether you are trying to educate your customers, or your team, content is valuable to drive traffic to your website no matter what. Of course, the content you want on your website should be content that your target audience wants. This content can be in the form of videos, podcasts, blogs, FAQs, and other content you may need. As long as your content is relevant, has a clear message, and grasps the attention of your audience, then it should be able to provide value.

Branding

Branding is an important part of success for any business that utilizes great brand techniques. The better you brand yourself, the more brand recognition you may experience. Branding takes some planning depending on if you already have a logo, font to use, and color scheme. If you don’t have a brand identity, then take some time to find out what it is. If you already do, be sure to apply it to your website to make sure it is the best representation of your business. 

Usability and User Experience

The usability and user experience that your website provides is extremely important to the success of your website. A website should be easy to use and provide a great experience. Anybody who uses your website and doesn’t have a good experience may have a negative impression of your business.

Navigation and Layout

Your website should be able to cleanly guide a user through all of its pages without having any delays. There should be a clear navigation path and calls to action that help with the navigability of your website. The layout of your website is also important to ensure that it has a simple structure and nothing that would be too complex for your target audience. A website with a complex structure may prove to be too confusing to browse through and may lead to users not returning to your website anytime soon. Be sure your website’s navigability and layout are easily digestible to the user. A great example is Dropbox’s layout which you can check out here. 

Responsiveness

An integral part of any website is its overall responsiveness to any clicks and actions from the user. A website that has consistently slow loading times and lags a lot can make a negative experience for the user. Everyone nowadays expects websites to load quickly and properly. If your website takes so long to load, then you should consider evaluating what exactly is causing the problem for your website so you can address it as soon as possible. 

Compatibility With Mobile Devices

Of course, one of the most important things to consider for your website design is if it is capable of being adapted to mobile devices. Most people nowadays browse through the web using mobile devices more than ever before. These websites are optimized for a mobile experience. They are easy to scroll through and don’t have a funky layout. Create a mobile version of your website to provide a great experience. 

As you can see, there are many things that you have to consider when creating/redesigning a website. This is why simply using a template for your website that another website uses isn’t the best idea as you may have different ideas in mind that the template simply won’t be able to accommodate. 

Remember The Purpose Of Your Website’s Design

It is important to remember that as you are creating or redesigning your website that you keep in mind what the purpose is. Working on a website’s design without a purpose can lead to confusion, disappointment, and failure. Think about the times you’ve worked on something that you felt didn’t have a purpose. You likely didn’t give it all the attention and work you could have. 

The purpose is a huge motivator and can be quite the driving force you need to ensure that your website is the best representation of your brand. Does your website stand out? Is it a joy to experience? Give your website a purpose to ensure that you and your team see it through all the way to the end.  

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