A website’s performance depends on how much planning its designers and developers put into things. Website design involves more than the look of your pages. You need to consider audience insights, SMART goals, and statistics. These things help in mapping out the website and optimizing it for mobile devices. When you’re designing pages, make sure you avoid these three common mistakes marketing teams make.
Mistake #1: Not Tracking The Analytics
Analytics data is the only quantitative proof you have that your website is working the way it should. If you were already tracking your website before the redesign, make sure you add the tracking codes back in after the revamp. This seems like a basic thing to overlook, but you would be surprised by how many marketers forget it.
Include conversion and bounce rates, click-through rates and page views, the average time people spend on your website, the referral source, and the number of visitors. The conversion and bounce rates will help you identify if people find what they need, while click-through rates and page views will show clues to whether readers are navigating and responding to your CTA. Meanwhile, your referral source will tell you where the traffic is coming from, like organic search, social media, paid ads, and more. If you don’t set this up, you will not have a benchmark for your efforts.
In the beginning, you can use free tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, but later on, paid tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics 360, and Kissmetrics will help you create more detailed strategies.
Mistake #2: Not Cleaning Up Broken Links
Broken links frustrate users and results in missed opportunities for conversions and sales. Launching a new website could cause some of your URLs to change, especially deeper landing pages and blogs. To avoid this, you need to monitor your site after it launches.
When your website launches, run a link check and ensure that you have redirects for all relevant pages. For pages with broken links, you should set up new page URLs instead of redirects. Google Web Developer tools can help you search and examine error pages, backlinks, redirects, and more. Then, check back after a few days and ensure that your 404 hits are manageable. Also, ensure that you don’t have old pages and URLs linking to your target keyword phrases. Finally, consider having redirects for popular backlinks.
Mistake #3: Thinking The Job Ends After The Redesign
Website design involves coming up with fresh content to remain relevant and dynamic. Companies often invest in the redesign but fail to account for long-term improvement. Pay ongoing attention to the factors that directly affect your product’s conversion, like the calls to action, landing page forms, and landing pages. Also, always have the latest information on your blogs, events and news sections, and similar pages.
Finally, you should have a content audit after the website has been up for a few months. Is your top-performing content bringing conversions, or do you need to repurpose it? Who should redevelop your content? What topics should have a place on the website? Regular monitoring is the key to success.
Conclusion
People often think of website launches as the end of a design process. However, a launch is only the beginning. The details and fine-tuning a website undergoes set it apart, but if marketers do not know what makes a great website, the revamp will not do much.
Clarify your marketing strategy and successfully launch your business’ branding by partnering with Lethal Digital. We’re a web design company in Perth, and our results-driven team of website design specialists will help you create a lead generation, email-nurturing and conversion strategy fit for your brand vision and goals. Contact us to learn more!
