50 questions to ask before redesigning your website

Are you thinking about redesigning your website, but you don’t really know where to start? Maybe your current website no longer meets your expectations or the ones of your visitors. But the question of “Why redesigning your website ” usually offers a number of answers. 

You won’t be surprised, there are many aspects to consider in the website redesign process, but maybe even more than you think… 

Your website needs to keep up with the evolution of the goals you have set for yourself and the strategy your company has adopted. Creating a new website is an opportunity to analyze your performance and your target audience. 

We have selected a list of 50 questions to ask yourself before proceeding with the redesign of your website. Going deeper into these questions will really serve your business and support your goals. 

Moreover, several people in your company must be involved in your website redesign project. Your colleagues’ answers to these questions may be different. This is one of the reasons why it is important to ask these questions as a group. Everyone needs to be aligned with the goals and reasons why you are starting the project of designing a new website. Expect to make choices and don’t necessarily seek consensus at all costs, you could waste a lot of valuable time.

Of course, the questions you need to ask yourself are not the same for all companies. Also, depending on the context, some questions may be relevant and others may not. For example, if this is your first website or if you want to start a website redesign project, the questions to ask yourself will not necessarily be the same. This is why we have decided to list 50 questions, but it is quite possible that only some of them will apply to your project.

Download the 50 questions to ask before redesigning a website.

General Questions

You need to think about the new shape of your website and therefore analyze what you like and what you don’t like. What you already have and what you are missing. Here is a list of the first questions that will allow you to properly identify and master your website redesign project. 

• What are your goals in redesigning your website (ex: increase transactions, visit duration, the number of sessions per client, etc.)?
• Are you considering a total redesign with new functionalities or simply changing the look of your current website?
• Have you thought about the process of selecting a supplier?
• What are the strengths of your current website?
• Which sites best represent what you expect from your next site and why?
• Which sites do you dislike and why? 
• What do you think are the criteria for a successful website redesign?
• What is the most important thing you want to communicate to your website visitors? 
• What is your budget for this redesign?
• What is the list of domain names you are using?
• Have you identified the CMS you would like to use?
• Have you identified the specifications of your web hosting needs?

Analysis 

It’s essential to analyze your website to identify its strengths and weaknesses. With these data in hand, you will know how to start with the process of optimizing the performance of your new website.  

• Are you experiencing problems with your current website? If so, what are they? (CMS, user interface, loading time?)
• What do you want to change from the old website (What issues do you want to fix? What are you missing? What feedback have you received on the website?)
• Will the website only be used for external use, or will it also be useful for the sales team?
• Once the redesign is done, will you be managing your website internally? 

The company and the market

It’s important to know your target and establish your personas. You will build your website based on your customers, and in this way, you will optimize the user experience.

• Who is your target audience?
• Have you already built personas?
• Who are your main competitors?

The internal organization

Whatever your reasons for redesigning your website, your strategy should involve your entire team. Surround yourself with a team that will represent each department of the company. You will discuss all aspects of the project together. This requires excellent organization and you will need to identify the role of each stakeholder.

• What is your deadline for the new site? Is it related to a particular event (launch, company anniversary, etc.?)
• Who are the internal stakeholders who will be involved in the project?
• Do you have a decision-making tree in place (Who is in charge? Who needs to be informed?, Who makes decisions?)
• Do you plan to set up meetings with your team to follow the progress of the project? If so, how often? 
• Have you taken into consideration the vacations of the various participants in the development of your schedule? 

Marketing questions

Above all, it is important to learn about the reality of your market, this will help you build your marketing plan for the creation of your new website. Focus more on your clientele’s expectations in order to provide them with the best possible offer. It is important to understand that you are developing this site for your audience. Keep in mind that your new website must be designed to help you attract business and increase your drawing power. You must convince your visitors to do business with you or join your team. 

If you practice inbound marketing, you need to know the current consumer trends of your target audience in order to adjust your strategy. This way, you will be able to prioritize your marketing channels.

The content of your website

Content creation is a must to attract visitors to your website. Today, 70% of people prefer to learn about products through blog posts rather than through traditional advertising. It is not enough to write content. Quality and updated content will enrich your natural referencing. This step is crucial to retain your current customers and attract potential customers.

• Have you identified which content to keep, which to optimize, which to delete and which to revise?
• Have you thought about the types of content you will integrate? (Audio, video, etc.) 
• How do you proceed with the photos and images of the website? Will you need to hire a photographer, or do you already have visuals available?
• If you don’t already have a blog, do you plan to have one? If so, what content would you like to see on it?
• Will your content be written in-house, or will you need the help of a firm?

Tools and features 

Have you thought about using technology marketing software to automate the sending of your emails or your social media posts? These platforms, such as HubSpot, can be very useful to design landing pages or lead generation forms to offer downloadable content to your visitors. These tools can help you increase your marketing productivity when your new website goes live. There are many useful software, tools and features to communicate and share information with your customers.

• Are you using a newsletter platform (Mailchimp, CyberImpact, etc.)? If so, which one? And are you planning to insert a registration form on your new website?
• Do you have to connect external software such as ERP, CRM or automated marketing software (ex: HubSpot)?
• Will your website be multilingual?
• Is the new website going to be transactional? If so, have you identified the payment platform? (ex: PayPal or Stripe)
• If you want a chat module (or chatbot), have you identified the solution you want to integrate?
• Do you think you need an internal search engine for your website?
• Do you want to integrate a calendar of events related to your business on your website? 
• Do you want to display ads on your website? 
• Will pages on your site have to advertise that they use cookies according to certain country requirements and follow good privacy practices?
• Do you plan to have a members-only section of your website? 

User behaviour

It is essential to have a detailed understanding of your users’ behaviours, knowing how they absorb the information on your website or what content attracts them. Again, this will help you in your design decisions.

It is extremely important to identify the content that is relevant to your visitors on your current website with analytics tools like Google Analytics. The content that generates visits from search engines should be carefully reviewed. Although your current website may no longer be working for you, there are probably pages of content that are generating quality visits.

• Which pages are currently the most visited?
• What content or downloadable documents are most frequently consumed?
• What are the top user exit pages to optimize?
• From what sources are traffic currently coming? Are there improvements that should be made to this page(s) to optimize it?
• Why do users come to our site and what do they expect to find?
• What are the different user paths and how can you improve the user experience?

The performance of your website

There are many SEO tools that will allow you to maximize your website for search engine optimization and thus improve its visibility in search engines.

• What are the important keywords in your market in order to make an SEO tree?
• What are the keywords for which your site generates very good results?

It is crucial to take into consideration and follow performance indicators to develop quality traffic on your website. Understanding your traffic means knowing the profile of your visitors, it is a competitive advantage.  

• Have you thought about your performance indicators?
• What metrics do you currently measure? Which ones would you like to measure in the future?
• Do you have a strategy to improve your conversion rates?

Conclusion

That’s it! You’ve gone through the 50 questions to ask yourself before redesigning your website. 

The important thing to remember is: a detailed analysis of your website’s performance will help you determine your needs so that your new website fully meets your expectations.  It is not enough to have the right answers, but to ask the right questions in the right context. 

You might think that it will take you more time, but that’s not the case. Your website redesign project should be well analyzed before you start. As they say: “There is no point in running; you have to start on time”. Don’t confuse speed with haste. Wanting to do something quickly does not mean rushing. In other words, to do something quickly and well, you must redouble your concentration and not skip steps.

Your new website needs to satisfy you and your users so that they get the best experience possible! 

In order to help you, we can share with you a form that we have created with Google that will allow you to share the questions you have selected with your team member quickly. To do this, simply download the 50 questions document and respond to the email you will receive afterwards.

If you would like more information on the various points raised, Parkour3 can advise you on the development of objectives for the redesign of your website. You can schedule a meeting with one of our experts by clicking here.

Download the 50 questions to ask yourself before redesigning your website.