Is it time for a redesign? Yes. - Yahoo! Search Marketing

Redesigning your site now will give you a leg up on the holiday rush
and make you more visible to search engines.

When customers visit your web site, they want to see something fresh. A timely
site conveys a professional image, which makes potential customers more comfortable
doing business with you. It’s especially important to consider this before heading
into the busy holiday shopping season. The look and feel of your site could
mean the difference between you and one of your competitors getting a purchase.
The question is, when is it time to redesign your web site?

There’s no time like the present, according to Justin Rattigan, vice president
of Solid Cactus, a full-service web design firm that specializes in building
Yahoo! merchant sites.

“A lot of people wait until October or November to redesign their site with
the holiday shopping rush in mind,” Rattigan says. “By then, it’s a little too
late. You have to give the search engines time to re-index your site, which
will improve your rankings, allowing you to better take advantage of the holiday
traffic.”

Cues That It Is Time to Redesign
Even if you think your site looks up to date, a few things may indicate otherwise:

• Low Conversion Rates. If you’re not turning your visitors into buyers,
  you may have a problem with the site design. “Low conversion rates, in either
  the form of sales or information requests, usually mean that your customers
  can’t find what they’re looking for,” Rattigan says. “A redesign can make
  this easier for them.”

• Low Search Engine Rankings. “Search engines have evolved, and consequently
  search for information differently than they did a few years ago,” he says.
  If you haven’t made any design changes, but you’re finding that you’re ranking
  lower than you used to, you should consider redesigning with search engine
  optimization in mind.”

• Customer Feedback. Ask your customers what they think of your site
  and make adjustments accordingly. “It’s a good idea to have a link on your
  site that asks questions like ‘How easy was it to find what your were looking
  for?’ or ‘What do you think of this page?’,” Rattigan says. “If they say it’s
  time to redesign, then it’s time.”

• The One-Year Rule. If you haven’t updated your site in the last twelve
  months, it most likely looks stale to your customers.

• New Branding, Reorganization, Change in Company Direction. Make sure
  to change your site to reflect any changes within your company.

A Few Things to Consider …
If you do decide to redesign your site, Rattigan recommends the following tips
to make the most of your efforts:

• Compare your site to larger companies. Rattigan recommends examining
  what the leading companies in your industry are doing on the web. “Larger
  companies have the budgets to do research on web trends. See what’s working
  for them and consider implementing it on your own site.”

• Keep the site intuitive. The
  easier your site is for customers to navigate, the more likely they are
  to make a purchase. “Your goal is to create a visual hierarchy with the navigation
  that guides people in the direction you want them to go,” he says. “Keep the
  navigation simple, but make it stand out.”

• Keep
  search engines in mind. Lay out your content to make your keywords
  easy for search engines to find. “Try to keep your keywords near the top of
  the page so the ‘crawler’ software can find them,” Rattigan says. “The easier
  it is for them, the higher you’ll rank.”

• Use style sheets. “Cascading style sheets (CSS) will cut down on
  the amount of code on your pages, which will help them load faster and make
  it easier for search engines to find the content they’re looking for,” Rattigan
  says.

• Doing something is better than nothing. Even if you don’t have the
  budget for a full-scale redesign, a few minor tweaks or content changes can
  make your site look fresh. “Even just changing your header image or replacing
  a few graphics can make a huge difference,” Rattigan adds. “It’s easier to
  keep your customers coming back if they see something, anything, that changes
  each time they come back.” Rotating new products and updating the text on
  your homepages are other solutions to consider.

Something to Watch Out for…
While your customers want to see fresh content and products, a complete redesign
may throw them off. If you already have a solid customer base, redesigning your
site may confuse them, and consequently affect your online sales, so it’s important
to let your customers know what your plans are. Keep them informed via email
or post a message on the site a few weeks prior to the redesign to let them
know it’s coming.

Starting the redesign process now could give you the advantage you need to
enjoy a successful holiday shopping season. The more time the search engines
have to index your site, the easier it will be for your potential customers
to find you. And, once they’re on the site, simple navigation will make it easier
to make a purchase. If you’ve recently redesigned your site, keep a close eye
on your conversion rates and search engine rankings; if they’re not where they
should be, it may be time to redesign — again.

Reprinted with permission of Yahoo! Incorporated.