Tag: Website Development

Your website is a multi-faceted platform with various moving parts and siloed teams to track continuously. Do you have an organized system to manage ongoing projects and daily tasks simultaneously? 

From regular maintenance to complete site redesigns, having streamlined workflows for website project management is essential. It ensures the design and development of your site remains efficient with the time and resources your business invests in. 

While certain aspects require collaboration, your web developers, designers, SEO copywriters, and clients should all be on the same page to better deliver quality work. 

If they’re constantly disrupted to redo site designs that stray far from the original concept or complete multiple rounds of copy edits that could’ve been consolidated, it can cost you more than necessary. It also increases the chance of mistakes happening due to this lack of focus. 

Below is a complete guide to project management for websites to maximize your work efficiency and budget—without overwhelming everyone involved. 

Website Project Management for Design & Development: A Complete Guide for Seamless Collaboration & Execution

Website project management should be a separate department or assigned to a specific role outside your dev ops and designers. They’re responsible for their own technical tasks and need proper guidance from a website project manager to execute them efficiently. 

Here’s how to ensure you set your web teams up for success in design, development, and everything in between. 

Create a Website Project Plan 

The first step for completing anything related to your site is creating a clear plan for everyone involved. This includes project management for routine site maintenance, new web builds, and redesigns for internal and external teams. 

A website project plan should include the following:

Understanding Your Web Project’s Goals

What are the goals behind your website’s tasks or projects? Whether you’re redesigning, building a new one, or optimizing it for SEO, understanding the reason behind your site’s projects is the foundation of its success.

For example, if you’re creating web content for the sake of doing it, it’s not researched-backed. Your website’s projects should be data-driven to ensure you remain on strategy for your bottom line.

Ask your team the following questions if you need help figuring out your site’s project goals:

• Why are we redesigning this site, and what is this aiming to accomplish? 
• Why are we building a new site, and what is this aiming to accomplish? 
• What are our top and lowest-performing web pages? 
• Which website performance metrics do we want to improve or sustain?
• How do we want our website to support our business goals?  

That way, everyone is aligned on the overall mission of the website’s project goals. 

Defining Key Web Project Details

Before you begin assigning tasks to your web teams, you must define the key details of how these will be executed and the project scope. 

Buffer Budget with All Website Deliverables

First, create a client-approved buffer budget for additional tasks that may pop up or take longer than expected. This budget should include exact deliverables, like the number of redesigned pages or written blogs. Don’t forget to include potential subtasks required, like A/B testing page design concepts and publishing blogs after approval to prevent going out of scope. 

Deadline Schedules with Your Preferred Project Management Method 

Next, set the deadlines for your website’s tasks and how you want to complete them. 

You can create milestones, like building a few web pages at a time and submitting them for client review. Known as agile web development, this project management methodology allows your team to work in short sprints with a few weekly or monthly deliverables at a time. 

If you prefer to complete your web projects all at once, choose the waterfall web development approach. However, you must understand the pros and cons of each that best suits your web project’s goals. 

Agile web project management is best if you’re on a tight deadline because you gain continuous feedback throughout the design and development process that can be turned around faster with fewer deliverables. Waterfall methodology is best for long-term web projects because it allows your team to work uninterrupted and the extra time to finalize the process. 

Website Project Management Template or Software 

We can’t stress enough the importance of using website project management platforms like Jira and Trello. Taking advantage of automation saves you time and headaches from manually creating workflows for your site’s projects.

Depending on the application, these may include:

• Pre-built website requests for new page graphics, copy edits, add-on features, etc. 
• Interconnected action items that prevent future web tasks from being assigned until the previous one is completed
• Sequenced site design/development steps, like preliminary design, code review, and testing
• Organized web tasks by priority and status of completion  

Web project management tools streamline your tasks and teams visually and easily in an automated, centralized platform. 

Organize Web Tasks by Phase 

Now that your website project plan is finalized, next is organizing the tasks by phase. While project management tools automate this for you, this helps guide your teams throughout the process. 

Your site’s tasks should be categorized in the following order: 

Website Project Discovery

This discovery phase occurs when you first create your website project plan. This initial step is the ideation of your site’s project. However, it requires careful guidance to prevent your discovery meeting from expanding into unrealistic or disorganized expectations. 

Ensure you only include people directly involved with the project, like a lead web developer, site designer, website project manager, and client representative. It prevents you from having too many cooks in the kitchen and promoting over-communication. 

You should also prepare questions from your website project plan, like client goals, buffered budget, deliverables, timeline, and project management methodology. That way, there aren’t any surprises that may delay everyone before you start design and development.  

Web Design

The site design phase involves multiple people, including web designers, SEO copywriters, and potential clients for approvals. They’re responsible for how the front end of your site will look. It’s especially crucial to organize the design stage of a web project because of the multiple roles you’ll manage. 

Set your web design team up for success with the following:

• Submit website examples to your designers for visual layout inspiration, must-have features, etc. 
• Provide your web designers with everything they need, including branding guidelines, images, logos, optimized web copy, etc.
• Give platform access to everyone involved to complete design tasks simultaneously across siloed teams
• Schedule design tasks from highest to lowest priority, like your Home page first and Testimonials page later
• Centralize all communications within your project management software for internal teams and update their tasks timely if you have edits from clients after review

You should also standardize core web design processes, including:

• Creating wireframes for web developers to reference when building sitemaps for the site’s structure
• Designing the visual layout of all web pages, including colors, font, visuals, and staging links for client review
• Setting up a content management system (CMS) to host, manage, and upload visuals and text assets for all web pages
• Registering a web domain so your site owns the rights to its name

Keep in mind that your web designers and developers work together to complete site projects. The main difference is that site designers create the visual elements, while web developers build and make them usable. 

Web Development

The web development phase primarily involves your dev ops team. They’re responsible for building the back end of your site’s functionality, requiring complex processes that must be executed successfully. While each web build is unique per platform and project, you can streamline their workflows more efficiently.

Standardizing core web development processes should include:

• XML Sitemap Creation: Creating a blueprint of the site’s structure, navigation, information hierarchy, etc. 
• Platform Plug-in Installation: Installing popular plug-ins separate from your site platform, like Yoast SEO and WooCommerce. 
• SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certification: Acquiring the code on your site’s server to create an encrypted connection and secure its data.
• Website Analytics Software Integration: Connecting the software to your site to track its performance. 
• Site Code & Tests: Building and testing the site’s various codes and markup languages to ensure proper functionality. 

While you can use a website project management tool to automate these processes, it still needs to be properly assigned and scheduled.  

Site-Wide Testing

Testing your website is comprehensive, but you don’t need to complicate it more with a set process in place. That way, your dev ops and web design teams ensure they don’t miss any crucial steps.

Create a site-wide testing plan for the following: 

• Website accessibility for disabled users per ADA compliance 
• User experience (UX) to provide visitors with seamless interaction in all aspects of your site, including minimal pop-ups, balanced white space, easy navigation, etc. 
• HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to ensure the HTTP version is redirected for site security 
• Page load speed on PageSpeed Insights for mobile and desktop 
• Site audits to check for potential issues, like broken links, invalid CSS/HTML, duplicate headings, and missing metadata 

Website Launch

Now that your website is ready to go live, your team is in the final phase of design and development.

Include the following in your workflows for a successful site launch:

• Submit sitemaps to Google Search Console for crawling and indexing 
• Train internal staff training for website management, like content uploads and performance tracking
• Proofread all web copy to ensure everything is accurate and error-free

Remember, you can always fix minor issues and make design changes once the website is live—so don’t delay the launch for aesthetics and quick fixes! 

Post-Launch

Even newly launched websites must be continuously monitored and maintained to ensure they perform as they should. From troubleshooting bugs to optimizing the site for new search engine algorithm updates, your website isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it situation. It’s an ongoing responsibility for your business. 

Create a post-launch checklist for your web team, including:

• Scheduling weekly website backups to save your site from accidental data loss
• Checking conversion paths for proper functionality on forms, page displays, etc.  
• Cross-promoting the website on social media 
• Fixing bugs when necessary

Make Your Site’s Projects Smooth Sailing with a Website Project Manager

As you can see, project management for website design and development is time-consuming and can get complex, even with automated platforms. Let a website project manager do the heavy lifting for you. 

At Reach Marketing Pro, we have extensive experience in all aspects of web project management, including site design, development, and maintenance. We’re a full-service digital agency equipped to handle all aspects of your site with our in-house web developers, web designers, graphic designers, SEO copywriters—and, of course, project managers. 

That way, you can focus on what you do best—managing your business and being an expert in your trade.

Ready to optimize your website’s workflows and better support your bottom line? 

Learn more about our website management services or contact us to make your site’s projects smoother sailing today! 

A user-friendly website is vital for your bottom line. It determines the ease of usability your site has for lead generation, conversions, SEO, and more. In contrast, poor site usability can make it harder for people to navigate, leading to higher bounce rates, lost sales, and dropped keyword rankings. 

Learn more about the significance of website user-friendliness and how to achieve successful usability to support your business goals. 

What Does User-Friendly Mean for Websites? 

The meaning of user-friendly for websites is making them easier for people to use. They should be able to browse, search for information, and complete actions on your site quickly and easily. 

Not to be confused with user experience (UX), which focuses on your site’s overall experience for people, whereas usability is for specific tasks. However, user-friendliness falls under the UX umbrella. Anyone should be able to use your site’s features easily and have a positive perception throughout the process.

For example, if your website has an easy-to-use custom product builder, but your page takes too long to load, it can compromise its usability. User-friendly sites and UX design go hand-in-hand.

Designing for Users: 10 Key Attributes of User-Friendly Websites

Learn the top 10 attributes of user-friendly websites with mistakes to avoid, tips on implementing them, and why each one matters.

1. Responsive Moblie & Desktop Design

Your website’s security is arguably the most important reason to take care of it. If your site’s platform hasn’t been updated to the People browse, research, and shop on mobile devices more than ever. In August 2024, studies show that nearly 62% of website traffic is from mobile users. At the same time, this doesn’t mean to neglect your desktop users. 

Compared to mobile, people using desktop devices visited 100% more pages and spent almost 38% more time on websites—an average of four to seven pages than mobile’s three!  

That’s why having a responsive website design on desktop and mobile is crucial. 

A responsive website means its layout can easily adapt to any screen size. If your site has the same design for all devices, it can make it harder for people to navigate, a.k.a. not user-friendly. Examples of non-responsive web design include shrunken pages on mobile that make your text too small to read or grainy images that stretch too far on desktop. 

You can optimize your site with user-friendly responsive design by:

• Testing your website on different devices after major updates to ensure everything remains responsive 
• Using flexible website grids and layouts via CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) code for optimal screen resolutions and orientations (portrait, landscape, iPads, Android phones, etc.)
• Implementing max-width image source codes so they resize proportionally to all devices
• Minimizing UI (user interactive) elements to prevent cluttering your site’s layout and complicating navigation

2. Fast Page Load Speed

Did you know if your website takes more than three seconds to load 40% of users will leave? In a rapid digital age, you can’t afford to lose visitors for slow page load speed. 

Common reasons for slow websites include:

• Large media files like long background videos and non-optimized images
• Insufficient web host plans that share servers with other websites, slowing your site’s queue and lowering server performance
• Limited CDN (Content Delivery Network) capabilities with smaller networks and no caching features
• Dated CMS (content management system) that hasn’t been updated regularly or has many unused plug-ins
• Unoptimized CSS and Javascript code with unnecessary rules or dense code, leading to increased HTTP requests your server can’t handle 

You can improve your website’s page load speed with the following:

• Compressing large media files and resizing them to a lower resolution
• Upgrading your web hosting plan or switching providers with larger networks
• Using CDNs with caching features for browsers and servers 
• Downloading CMS updates regularly and removing unnecessary plug-ins
• Minifying CSS and Javascript code to reduce the number of files loaded on your web pages

Not to mention, slow page load also impacts your website’s technical SEO performance, like lower SERP rankings and reduced crawl rates. Google prioritizes fast-loading sites because it strengthens UX with quick content access. 

Additionally, poor technical SEO makes it harder for search bots to crawl your website, delaying the indexing process. If Google takes a while to discover (crawl) and index (store) your site in their database, it’s essentially invisible online to users. 

3. Seamless Navigation

Your website’s navigation can be the main reason users browse or bounce. A beautifully designed site is nothing without successful functionality. If your website has no breadcrumbs for users to return to a page easily or has cluttered menu bars with too many web pages, it makes it harder for people to navigate. 

User-friendly websites provide a seamless navigation experience, including:

• Organized menu hierarchy by page priority with the top ones in the beginning, the lowest in the middle, and the contact page at the last 
• Simplified menu bar design with a short list of options at the top header or side (seven maximum is recommended for most sites) 
• Implemented breadcrumbs for users to backtrack easier or for sites with complex structures 
• User-focused navigation experience with a recognizable search bar and accurate content label categories 

4. Clear CTAs & Proper Placement

As a business, your website must encourage users to take action. Whether it’s generating user engagement, leads, or conversions, your site should have various calls to action (CTAs) for your bottom line. CTAs prompt user interactions by guiding them to take the next step, like submitting a contact form, scheduling a demo, or downloading a free guide. 

However, your CTAs require a careful balance to prevent them from making your site less user-friendly. Using too many pop-ups can overwhelm people, adding buttons that aren’t recognizable can easily be missed, and writing non-persuasive copy can make them ineffective. 

User-friendly websites have clear and impactful CTAs, including:

• Adding CTA buttons with bold colors, responsive sizing, and easy-to-find placement
• Minimizing pop-ups that are distracting or spammy and make users bounce
• Using persuasive CTA copy with action-oriented verbs that support the page’s content appropriately, like “Start Your Free Trial Today” instead of “Sign Up”
• A/B testing your CTA buttons to see which designs resonate with users more

5. Compliant User Accessibility

Your website must be accessible to all users by law. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) now requires business websites to have accessibility-designed features and functionalities for disabled users. 

The ADA’s website accessibility guidelines include: 

• Writing descriptive image alt text for blind users to understand the purpose of your visuals, including pictures, logos, and charts
• Using screen readers that speak the text of your web pages and online forms for blind users 
• Implementing keyboard navigation for users who cannot physically access a website via mouse 
• Adding captions to your videos for people with hearing disabilities 

You should also check with your state and local governments if they have specific regulations for website accessibility requirements. Remember, user-friendly sites are meant for all users. 

6. Balanced Layout Design

Adding more website designs and features doesn’t always mean better when it comes to user-friendliness. In fact, it can do the opposite for your site’s usability. Text-heavy pages and too many visuals can make your site look cluttered and harder to read for users.

User-friendly site designs include:

• Contrasting page colors to create a balanced layout design
• Ample white space to break up heavy text 
• Easy-to-read fonts with sufficient sizing on all devices
• Appropriate number of visuals that support your page’s content without distraction 

7. Organized Content Structure

Site maintenance costs depend on several factors, including:

Your website’s content must pass the scanability test for users and search engines alike. They should be able to quickly scroll and know instantly what it’s about to ensure your site’s content has strong usability and SEO performance. 

User-friendly content formatting for websites includes:

• Headings, subheadings, bullet point lists, and small paragraphs with four sentences minimum for easier readability 
• Proper heading hierarchy for search engines to crawl and index faster (Ex: One H1 per page)
• Keyword-optimized heading titles that briefly and clearly describe the content sections below it for search engine relevancy and user understanding

Organized website architecture can boost your conversion rate six times and be your highest ROI driver over time.  

8. Simple Online Forms

Your website’s online forms are how you capture contacts and generate leads. If you make this harder than it should be, users can easily leave in the middle of filling them out due to the inconvenience—potentially losing customers from poor usability. 

User-friendly forms should be straightforward. Include the minimum number of form fields you require, like name, phone number, email, and a button to submit their information. Adding too many required or optional fields can reduce your form’s lead generation as a result. 

You can also strengthen form usability by having an option to save their contact information for future use. Returning customers like the convenience of minimal clicks to check out their purchases. 

9. Clean Code & Valid Markup

Having clean site code and valid markup is not only beneficial for users but also for your web developers to enhance its usability more easily. Cluttered or error-filled code and invalid markup, like missing tags, make it harder for developers to read for regular website maintenance, scale it for site redesigns, and troubleshoot it for technical issues when necessary. 

On the user end, sites with organized code and proper markup language have stronger browser compatibility and SEO performance. 

In addition to different devices, users visit websites with various browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, which all interpret web pages differently. Since quality code is more stable with fewer loading errors, it allows your site to have a consistent browser experience so its usability performs and looks as it should across all of them. 

Regarding SEO, clean code makes it easier for search bots to crawl and index your site’s content because they’ll understand it better. In return, it can improve your site’s visibility and keyword rankings for search engines because it’s optimized for them. 

You can check if your website has user-friendly code and markup language with the following:

• Code comments for future web developers to reference without overdoing them
• SEO crawlers, like ScreamingFrog, flag and help you fix HTML errors on your site
• Code cleaner tools, like DirtyMarkup, reformat your disorganized HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code

10. Valuable User Feedback

Who better to learn how to make your site more user-friendly than the people you’re designing it for? Your users know what they like and don’t like from your website the best. You can gain valuable insights from the people you’re trying to attract directly. 

Online surveys are a simple way to get feedback on the user-friendliness of your site. You can add them to the home page or in email blasts and even offer incentives for users to fill them out, like one-time discounts or gift cards. 

Include questions in your site’s surveys like:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy was it to find what you were looking for? 
• How likely are you to recommend our website to people you know?
• What features would you like to see added or changes to be made to our website? 
• Did you experience any technical issues while using our website? 

Don’t Push People Away: Make Your Site User-Friendly Today

Don’t push potential customers away from your website with poor user-friendliness. Your site is a significant investment and the foundation for your business. It should attract your target audience and keep them by making it as easy as possible for them to use. 

However, it’s understandable to not know where to begin and have the time commitment to maintain since it’s multi-faceted. User-friendly websites require regular updates on the front and back end, which can be challenging for businesses to do themselves—especially if it hasn’t been maintained for a while. 

At Reach Marketing Pro, we’re a full-service digital marketing agency with extensive experience designing, developing, and managing user-friendly sites. From website redesigns to UX optimization and custom code, we can improve your site’s usability in all aspects. 

Ready to keep your users happy for your bottom line?

Learn more about our website design & development services, or contact us to make your site more user-friendly today! 

Like other aspects of your business’s digital marketing, your website needs regular upkeep to ensure everything runs smoothly. Website maintenance is an ongoing process, even if you recently launched a new one. 

From site security risks to optimal SEO performance, learn more about web maintenance and management and why keeping up is imperative.

What is Website Maintenance? 

Website maintenance means, as the name suggests, taking care of your site as needed. 

Your security software will eventually need to be updated to new versions to maximize your site’s protection from new cyber threats. Sometimes, there’s a significant shift in Google’s algorithms, and different aspects of website SEO need different optimization, like its new AI search engine, Search Generative Experience. 

There are even website accessibility laws, where your site must be ADA-compliant for users with disabilities.

The digital landscape is ever-evolving, and your business website must adapt quickly. That’s where web maintenance comes in. It prevents your site from experiencing several online risks and performance issues. 

What is Website Management? 

Website management and maintenance are interconnected. Maintaining your site falls under the management umbrella. However, site management is more than updating it as necessary. It involves monitoring your website’s overall performance and uploading new content as part of your digital marketing efforts. 

Web management and maintenance are both key focuses for keeping your site’s functionality and health in top shape.

Why Web Maintenance & Management is Necessary for Businesses

Website management and maintenance are essential for businesses. Learn why investing in these services is necessary for your bottom line below.

Prevents Site Security Risks

Your website’s security is arguably the most important reason to take care of it. If your site’s platform hasn’t been updated to the most recent version or has expired SSL certificates, your business is at serious risk because your data isn’t protected.

During site maintenance, web developers scan it for these potential security issues to prevent you from cyber attacks, malware, and leaked sensitive information. 

Strengthening your site’s security typically includes:

• Updating security codes
• Re-certifying SSL
• Installing web application firewalls (WAFs)
• Implementing multi-factor authorization (MFA)
• Limiting user access settings

With a 72% increase in data breaches last year alone and at a record high, now, more than ever, it’s critical to safeguard your company’s website from cyber crimes. 

Strengthens SEO Performance

Google’s algorithms are constantly changing, and your website needs to keep up for optimal SEO performance, including on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. 

SEO website management and maintenance tasks may require:

• Technical SEO: Compressing large media files to increase site speed, fixing broken links, redesigning pages for mobile responsiveness, etc.
• On-Page SEO: Optimizing metadata with new target keywords, including page titles, meta descriptions, image alt text, and fixing related issues like duplicate content or word count limits, etc.
• Off-Page SEO: Creating sitemaps for crawling or indexing issues on Google Search Console, removing toxic backlinks, etc. 

It ensures your site maximizes its online visibility for search engines and target audiences.

Saves Your Website From Data Loss

Another major impact of website maintenance is saving it from data loss with routine backups. Whether you accidentally deleted files, have a hardware failure, transferred information incorrectly, or experienced malware, these are the most common reasons your entire website’s data can become lost. 

If you don’t regularly back up your site, you’ll have nowhere to recover it. You may lose customer contacts, saved passwords, complex codes your developers created to customize your site, and more. 

Website backups make a copy of your existing site by safely storing it offline or in a secure cloud so you can always recover the most recent version. How often you should back up your website depends on how frequently you update it. 

If you only post monthly blogs, backing up your site at that rate should be sufficient. If you’re redesigning your site, backing it up daily or weekly is recommended.

Supports Your Bottom Line

Web maintenance strengthens its user experience (UX), which, in return, supports your bottom line. Even if you regularly take care of your site, any updates may negatively impact its UX. 

For example, large media files like background videos may significantly slow your site’s page load speed. In today’s digital age, 40% of users will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. During maintenance, web developers may recommend compressing these files or replacing them with new media that doesn’t slow your site down. 

Additional UX site maintenance tasks may include:

• Adding breadcrumbs for users to navigate your site pages more easily
• Installing one-click checkout to increase cart conversions
• Uploading clearer visuals for a sleeker site design and a stronger brand impression

Website Maintenance FAQs

Below are some common FAQs about web maintenance asked by businesses. 

How Often Should I Maintain My Website?

As mentioned above, how often you should maintain your website depends on how frequently you update it. If you change it daily, weekly, or monthly, your site maintenance should meet this same rate. That way, you can recover the most recent version of it should you lose any data and ensure it always performs as it should.

How Much Does Maintaining a Website Cost?

Site maintenance costs depend on several factors, including:

• Website size
• Website platform
• Web developer rates
• What you’re updating: (Ex: domain names, SSL certificates, web hosting providers, content updates, SEO optimization, etc.) 

In 2024, the average pricing for web maintenance plans ranges between $15 and $300 per month. 

Should I Hire a Website Maintenance Company or DIY?

While some web maintenance tasks may be doable yourself, like on-page SEO, there are risks your business poses without prior experience. Complex tasks, like site security updates, should be done by web developers to prevent related risks. You’ll also spend more time and resources doing it yourself instead of professionals who can do it quickly and more efficiently.

What’s Included in Professional Web Maintenance Plans?

Professional web maintenance services offer various plans, depending on the company. Most web developers will include plug-in updates, site theme changes, security scanning, and website backups in their plans.

Keep Your Site Updated & Safe with Professional Web Maintenance Services

Because web maintenance is ongoing, you may not have the time to commit to these necessary tasks. You have to manage your business while being an expert in your trade. At Reach Marketing Pro, we can lift this workload off your shoulders and ensure your website performs as it should. 

We’re a full-service digital agency with extensive experience in web design, maintenance, development, and management. Our site maintenance services include technical support, UX design changes, WordPress updates, and more. 

Learn more about our website services or contact us for questions about how we can upgrade your site today! 

Are you considering building a website or migrating an existing one to Webflow? Whether it’s a new business launch or a site redesign, Webflow is a user-friendly website builder that makes it easy to do so. 

From drag-and-drop features to pre-designed site templates and a flexible content management system (CMS), you can customize your new Webflow website no matter your experience. 

Learn how to create a website in Webflow with tips and mistakes to avoid in this beginner’s guide. 

How to Create a Website in Webflow in Six Steps

Here’s how to create a website in Webflow in six simple steps.

1. Sign Up For a Webflow Account

The first step to building a Webflow site is to sign up for an account. Webflow offers free starter accounts with fully customizable templates. It also has paid site plans with access to premium features like custom domains and additional monthly contact form submissions. 

2. Select a Site Template

Next is choosing a website template. Webflow has over 1,500 free pre-designed templates with diverse themes from non-profits to fashion, medical, and more. Regardless of which you pick, they’re all easily customizable without code. Webflow also offers blank templates if you prefer to build a site from scratch. 

If you have limited to no experience creating websites from site builders, we suggest using a pre-designed template. It gives you a foundation to customize, so you don’t have to build certain page elements or features on your own. Pre-designed templates also allow you to have a quicker turnaround for launch. 

However, selecting the right Webflow template is one of your most important decisions. It must fully support your business needs, showcase your unique brand, and keep your customers happy when visiting your site. 

Consider the must-have designs before building your website, such as: 

• Industry-specific features like payment gateways and one-click checkout for e-commerce 
• Total pages required (these are limited per template)
• Type of pages required: collection, service, product, blog, etc. 
• Brand-centric themes like 3D elements or demo contact forms for SaaS 

While the details may seem overwhelming, you can start by choosing a category that closely aligns with your industry. Webflow also allows you to preview their templates by testing them to ensure their functionalities and designs meet your business needs. 

3. Customize Your Site Template

After selecting a template, you must customize the design to match your branding guidelines. Change the theme colors, text fonts, and logos to showcase your unique brand. Otherwise, it’ll have stock imagery and look like a pre-designed template that wasn’t customized—which your audience will notice.  

You’ll need to become familiar with Webflow’s interface, but luckily, it’s easy to navigate. In the upper right-hand corner, open the Navigator tab, which organizes your site structure in one list. Depending on your template, it’ll display your site’s Body, Header, Section, and Footer, where you can simply drag and drop elements to customize the design.

In addition to aesthetics, ensure your updated template has optimal UX (user experience) design. UX is crucial in web design because it’s built with your users in mind. If potential customers experience text-heavy pages, slow page speeds, and blurry mobile images when navigating your site, they’ll quickly bounce.

In fact, 40% of users will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load and are five times more likely to abandon a task if it isn’t optimized for mobile. Your website should be generating traffic and converting leads. Don’t be the reason they leave from poor UX. 

Some UX-centric site design tips include: 

• Balanced white space
• Clear visuals
• Responsiveness on mobile and desktop
• Easy-to-use navigation with site breadcrumbs
• Compressing large media files for faster page load speed

Keep in mind that you don’t have to customize your template in one sitting. It takes time to create a website, even with Webflow. Start with your core site pages, like Home, Service/Product, About, and Contact Us. Then, you can branch out to design the rest one page at a time. 

4. Create or Migrate Your Website Content to Webflow

If you’re migrating content from an existing site to Webflow, you can use migration tools or CSV plug-in files to transfer text and media to their platform. 

If you’re creating content within Webflow, you’ll need to insert your text and media via Webflow Editor. It’s like the Navigator tab for your site structure mentioned above but for content. 

The most common Webflow Editor elements to create content within your template are Sections, Headings, and Paragraphs. All you have to do is fill in your text and upload visuals in their CMS fields that are shown visually right on the page. Webflow also offers dynamic content features, like 3D visual transformations and pop-up variations for different pages.

While websites built with Webflow have built-in SEO tools with no plug-ins necessary, you’ll still need to optimize your content. You can write your metadata, add schema markup, create sitemaps, migrate 301 directs from an existing site, and more. You can even set editor settings for collaborators to access your content to help you create and optimize it. 

5. Preview Your Webflow Website

Once your site template is customized and your content is added, the final step before launch is reviewing it for design and functionality. Webflow has a preview mode where you can check if all the site designs look and perform as they should as a saved draft.

Test your web design on mobile and desktop for the following:

• Click all buttons and links to ensure they work 
• Look at your content on different devices to see if they have easy readability
• Measure how long your site takes to load on Google PageSpeed Insights
• Share your preview link with others for further review on details you may miss

Don’t get too hung up on the details during this part. You can always update your site once it’s live with ongoing website maintenance. 

6. Launch Your Webflow Website

When you’re ready to publish your website, you can use a subdomain of webflow.com or create a custom domain with a paid Webflow account. Just make sure to index your web pages on Google Search Console so it can index and crawl your site. Remember, if Google can’t discover your website, it’s essentially invisible online.

In addition to indexing, monitoring your new site’s performance is critical. It ensures everything is running smoothly for your visitors. 

Track the following in a post-site launch:

• Indexing status on Google Search Console
• Overall website performance with Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
• Potential SEO issues like duplicate headings and broken links with website crawlers like ScreamingFrog 

Finally, start spreading the word! Cross-promote your new Webflow website on social media or advertising to generate audience discovery of all the hard work you put in.

Unlock Your Webflow Site’s Potential with Full-Service Web Design & Development

Although Webflow makes it easier to build a website, it’s still a comprehensive process that must be done correctly. Your site must be accessible to users with disabilities, properly optimized for Google’s changing algorithms, and regularly maintained for optimal performance.

As a business owner or leader in your trade, it can be time-consuming and challenging to navigate the complexities of web design. At Reach Marketing Pro, we are your one-stop shop for everything you need to launch or migrate a new Webflow site. 

We’re a full-service digital marketing agency with extensive experience in Webflow, including design, maintenance, development, and management. Our team includes graphic designers to make custom visuals for a powerful site and brand design. We also have SEO content writers with the expertise to create and optimize your site text for target audiences and Google. 

Ready to unlock your Webflow website’s full potential? 

Learn more about our web design and development services, or contact us to kick off your new site journey on the right foot today! 

A website redesign is a significant investment but eventually necessary for your business. Whether you have a dated design, are rebranding your company, or aren’t seeing optimal results with your site’s SEO performance, redesigning a website can help achieve these goals. 

As a business owner, it’s understandable to feel apprehensive about a website makeover. It’s a comprehensive process and requires various resources to execute successfully. 

However, it doesn’t always have to be a complete website revamp. 

You can take an easier approach to your redesign project as an ongoing process with a step-by-step plan. 

How to Redesign a Website for Your Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

On average, businesses should redesign their websites every 1.5 to 2.5+ years. Website redesign frequency depends on various factors, like how often you maintain it and your site’s performance. 

Some signs that it’s time for a website upgrade include:

• Weak SEO Performance: Rapidly declining keyword rankings, indexed pages, etc. 
• Dated Site Design: Many text-heavy home page sliders, generic stock photos, etc.  
• Poor Website Functionality: No website breadcrumbs, slow page load speed, etc. 
• Rebranding: Merging companies, expanding product/service offerings, etc. 
• Challenging Customization: Limited capabilities to edit design templates, can’t integrate popular third-party applications, etc.  
• Poor Website Benchmarks: Rapidly declining conversion rates, form submissions, traffic, etc. 

Below is a step-by-step guide on the website redesign process from initial strategy to relaunch. 

Develop a Website Redesign Strategy

The first step in your website redesign project plan must be developing a strategy. Creating this foundation defines why you need to redesign your website in the first place. 

Ask your team these key questions before you start the redesign process:

• Why do you want to redesign your website?
• Which website performance metrics do you want to improve?
• Who will be responsible for the redesign and development? 
• How much budget do you have for the design and development?
• What are your goals with your new website design? 

That way, you can set clear expectations and have a smoother redesign process for your team to execute more effectively.  

Define What Your Website Makeover Should Look Like

A new website design is more than a makeover. It should align with your unique brand and support your bottom line. Defining what the site’s new visuals and messaging should look like is essential to a successful redesign. 

Ask your team these key design questions before you start the redesign process:

• What do you like and dislike about your current site? 
• Which features do you want to add or remove from your current site?
• What new designs do you want to see on your site, and why? 
• Do you have inspirational design examples to reference? 
• Can you provide website branding guidelines, like fonts and colors? 

If you need more guidance on your site’s visual designs, research your competitors and industry leaders as inspiration. Just be sure you make it align with your unique brand and that it doesn’t exactly copy. 

Additionally, you must follow key website redesign best practices, including ample blank space to prevent text-heavy pages and contrasting colors for balance.

Analyze Your Site Audit Metrics Before Redesigning

Don’t redesign your website for the sake of looks only. While dated site designs are important to upgrade, the purpose of your redesign project should be data-driven through a website audit. That way, you can make the necessary changes and investments for optimal results. You may discover areas of your site that need improvement you didn’t notice before.  

Common website audit metrics to analyze for a redesign include:

• Top pages with the most organic traffic
• Total keyword rankings 
• Top pages with the most leads
• Top pages with the most conversions

When evaluating these metrics, check if their rates are increasing or decreasing to know which pages to prioritize first. Investing in your top-performing pages first can help maintain its performance during the redesign process. 

You should also note your lower-performing web pages to know which areas to prioritize for improvement. If you see a high cart abandonment rate or declining conversions, your website may have a poor user experience (UX). Your current site design may be making it harder for potential customers to convert, like no saved payment method features or slow page load speeds. 

Use a New Website Platform If Necessary

You can waste time and resources on a website redesign if your current platform has many limitations on its capabilities. If you can’t customize the design template to meet your branding guidelines or integrate vital e-commerce features for your business, like a one-click checkout, you likely won’t meet your redesign goals. 

Your website platform shouldn’t hold you back from getting your ideal site design. If this is the case, be prepared for a website migration. Your web developers should utilize sitemap lists, create 301 redirects, and set up Google Analytics to streamline the data transfer process.   

Create a Content Strategy for Your New Website Design

To maximize your content marketing ROI during a website redesign, organize your current content into three categories:

1. Removable Content: Deleting vague home page details that don’t immediately define your brand, talking about your company instead of how you can help your target audience, etc. 
2. Updated Content: Adding captivating infographics, embedding Google reviews to product pages, integrating a separate blog website to your main site, etc. 
3. New Content: Creating individual location pages for multiple in-person stores or service areas, making short clip videos for software demos, adding more downloadables, etc. 

Quality website content that ranks high on Google can be one of your biggest ROI drivers over time—especially when you’re investing in a new site design. 

Re-Optimize Your Site for SEO

Website redesign SEO is a critical step. It ensures you protect your top-performing pages while improving your lower ones during the redesign process. 

Conducting an SEO audit for your site will guide you on where to start, such as:

• Search Valued Pages: Pages with the highest and lowest traffic, lead generation, conversions, etc. 
• Metadata/On-Page SEO: Page tiles without keyword optimization, missing headings, duplicate meta descriptions, etc. 
• Technical SEO: Pages with slow page load speed, broken links, no SSL, etc. 
• Off-Page SEO: Pages with the highest-quality backlinks, traffic from social media, etc. 

Luckily, popular SEO platforms make it easy to prioritize which web pages you should redesign first. They’ll flag which pages are impacting your website’s SEO performance most to least. 

Test Your Site Redesign

Now you’re at the final step before a website relaunch. Before going live, test it to ensure everything functions properly and looks how it should. 

Conduct A/B testing via email with two versions of one of your web pages to see which ones users respond to better. Your target audience may download more free template guides with one CTA button color or text over another. It’s about learning which designs work best with your consumers without assuming. 

Also, send your website’s staging link to your team for their review on the following:

• Proofreading web copy for typos, grammatical errors, and effective messaging
• Clicking all links to confirm they’re not broken or directing to the wrong page
• Navigating the website as a visitor to ensure your redesign has a strong UX

Once your new site design has been approved for final review, you can relaunch! We also encourage monitoring your website post-launch to confirm its performance continues successfully. 

Website Redesign FAQs

Below are some of the most common FAQs when redesigning a website. 

Why Redesign a Website?

Your SEO ROI is technically calculated by the profit or your sales/revenue after your content marketing expenses: 

Website redesigns are necessary if they’re not functioning as they should or aren’t supporting your bottom line. Analyzing your website audit reports can determine if minor updates can fix current issues or if a redesign is warranted. 

How Often Should You Redesign Your Website?

You should redesign your website every 1.5 to 2.5+ years. It depends on how often you maintain it and your marketing goals.

Should I Use Website Redesign Services or DIY?

While DIY web redesign is doable with user-friendly website platform builders and template designs, you can maximize your investment and results with a website redesign company. They understand how to optimize your new design within your unique business goals and streamline the process with their expertise—saving you time and resources. 

Make the Most of Your Site’s Makeover with a Website Redesign Agency

Your website is the foundation of your business. In a competitive digital marketplace, it’s crucial that your site stands out and performs well for your bottom line. Investing in professional website redesign is the best way to maximize your budget and accomplish your company’s goals. 

At Reach Marketing Pro, our in-house web developers and designers have extensive experience revamping dated sites, rebranding, re-optimizing for SEO, and more. We know how to make your website look as good as it performs with monthly reporting to ensure it generates optimal results.

Ready to make the most of your website’s makeover? 

Learn more about our website design and development services, or contact us for help today!