Whether you are a business needing a new website or an established company in need of a website revamp, taking time at the beginning of your project to plan and determine what you want to achieve will be time well spent. Writing a brief covering your goals and objectives along with an overview of your technical and functional requirements will provide a starting point for further discussions with your web developer.

Your website is your shop window and can have a direct effect on sales. Visitors will make up their mind in seconds whether to stay on your site or jump off to one of your competitors. You need to capture their attention, establish your credentials and prove your credibility at a glance.

Design, colours and the wording you use will communicate the reasons why visitors should delve further into your website pages to find out more information. By using the AIDA formula you can provide information to drive them to your preferred call to action.

Writing clear, concise information that will grab their attention is vital and you may want to consider using a professional copywriter to achieve this. Other sales drivers include testimonials from existing customers, blog articles and an enquiry form, all of which can be strategically positioned on the home page.

The next step is to consider how the user will navigate around your website and list the most important aspects of your service or products. Producing a simple site map will help you to scope out your offering and provide a menu for your website. Always consider that, ideally, you want to get your visitor to the relevant information with minimal clicks; three should be the maximum number of clicks to get them to a call to action.

A typical simple site map with two levels of navigation could look something like this:
 

Site revamp
Compared to a new website, an existing site has a history and we would recommend looking at your website statistics software to find out how your site is currently performing. If you have Google Analytics installed on your website all sorts of statistics are available, such as; device used, bounce rates and visitor flows. All of the websites we build for our clients have Google Analytics installed as standard which provides us with the information needed to make a complete diagnostic check of the site.

Measure of success
The success of your website is determined by its ability to convert visitors into new customers or sales. Any revamp should include functional, design and content improvements that will increase your conversion rates.

By following the advice above and working with our team of experts who understand internet marketing, we will be able to improve the performance of your website.
Mark Langston