Redesigning Your Website

Gaurav Chitnis

November 08, 2007

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People who are in any form of online business, or have a website for a long time wonder if they should redesign their website or make some structural changes. So how and when do you go about redesigning your website so that it looks more professsional and at par with current standards.

You can begin by asking yourself why exactly do you want to redesign your website. You might ask this question to yourself as well as a couple of other trusted people. If you do not find a convincing answer to that question, you might as well not redesign your website at the moment. You must have a reason to redesign your existing website. For example, the design might not be up to industry standards, or might be too cluttered and disorganized. Or else your services or products might have increased or changed over time. In fact your current website might have a specific use or a reason and you might even lose that if you go about redesigning your website.

But then there are many other occasions when a redesign is an absolute necessity. If your website design is too old and needs a new makeover, then perhaps you do need a new design. But while doing this, do not forget your existing user base. It is for their convenience that you are redesigning your website. Always try and warn them that a new web design is just round the corner. In fact you could also ask their opinion on what changes they would like to see and then try and implement them.

Whenever you redesign your website, please make sure that it retains some of it's old characteristics. It may be the colors, the company logo, or even the fonts. This is important, since you don't want your existing users to go through a case of mistaken identity. Yes! this has happened before, when users have temporarily abandoned websites since they could not recognize the new design to be the same old website.

That's the reason it is so important to keep your existing users involved in the process to a certain extent at least. You could try a feedback form or an opinion poll to gather user feedback, and then take the appropriate steps in redesigning your website.