10 Common Pitfalls in Website Redesign Projects and How to Avoid Them

Your website is the doorstep to your business and likely the most critical touchpoint on your customers' journey. Redesigning a website is a complex endeavour that can significantly impact your business's online presence, for better or worse. During my career, I have led many website redesign projects and tackled numerous related issues. Mistakes are an excellent source for learning, but the cheapest mistake is the one you foresee and avoid altogether. Here's a list of the problems I have encountered most frequently and tips on preventing them.

1. Failing to Define Clear Goals, Objectives and Requirements

The first and most crucial step in any website redesign project is to define clear goals and objectives for the project outcome. Yet, it may be easily overlooked, mainly when the renewal is driven by either a forced system update (your legacy platform is no longer being supported) or a re-branding ("we'll just update the look and feel"). Lacking a clear vision can lead to wasted time and resources. The second step is to scrutinize and prioritize the goals. What are the goals based on? How are customers' expectations considered in these goals? When the going gets tough, as it almost always does at some point, how will you prioritize one goal against another??

Solutions:

• Start by identifying your business goals. Is your primary objective to generate demand, increase conversions, or increase retention and customer lifetime value through superior user experience??
• Prioritize these goals and ensure all team members and stakeholders are aligned?with them. A clear prioritization protocol set at the beginning of the project will guide every decision throughout the project and help avoid unnecessary escalations and development paralysis if difficult decisions need to be made.
• Ensure your requirements list is complete, and all epics and user stories are well-defined and validated with key stakeholders.?This list can?never?be?too long or?detailed as long as the requirements are prioritized.?Each requirement should have a business goal assigned to it. Adding visionary long-term requirements to the backlog is also an effective way to future-proof your site (see section 2).

2. Failing to Future-Proof the New Platform

Business priorities change, and technology evolves rapidly. Your new website should be built to adapt to future changes. A rigid, outdated platform can limit your ability to innovate and grow, which is likely why you are renewing your site.?

Solution:

• The first step in future-proofing your site is to consider your requirements in the longer term.?In my experience, it?is always a good idea to share a high-level brief of your long-term ambitions with the designers and architects so that they can consider these in their plans, even if they will not be developed in the first versions.
• Consider a composable architecture for your website. This approach involves using modular components that can?be replaced?or updated individually as business needs change and technology evolves. However, a composable structure is unlikely to be the cheapest and fastest way to redesign your website. If costs and speed weigh more heavily against customizability, ensure your platform of choice is scalable?and flexible enough to accommodate potential future needs.

3. Not Involving Stakeholders in the Process

A website redesign affects multiple departments and stakeholders. The process usually entails compromises, and it?is difficult?to please everyone.?All key stakeholders' critical expectations must be met?to ensure general satisfaction with the final product. A classic mistake is to involve?key?stakeholders too late in the process or not to gather requirements from all key stakeholders.?Such neglect may result in pressure to update designs,?tickets and entire backlog prioritization during development, burning time and money.

Solutions:

• Engage stakeholders from the beginning. Ensure all key stakeholders have been interviewed in the requirements-gathering phase to ensure alignment, buy-in and accountability.?
• Never assume one team has identical needs to another; more?is more when gathering requirements! Should there be internal conflicts around specific requirements or their priority, it is best to identify and address them before the design work begins.
• Hold regular meetings to gather input and update stakeholders on progress. Ensure their feedback is considered and incorporated into?the backlog to align the final product with?business needs.

4. Lack of Internal Ownership

Without a designated Product Owner, a website redesign project can lack direction and accountability. Internal ownership is crucial for maintaining focus, achieving the set business goals, and driving the project to completion on time.?A successful Product Owner understands the business?needs and?constraints?and speaks fluent tech. Product Owner is not the Project Manager, although a capable expert can fulfil both roles, time permitting.

Solution:?Appoint an experienced product owner?who will?oversee the project, make?critical?decisions, and ensure alignment with business goals. This person should have strong business acumen, a deep understanding of the business objectives and the authority to guide the project effectively. Previous experience with Agile Methodologies is a must to work effectively with the design and developer teams.

5. Ignoring Device Responsiveness Requirements

By?now, we all know that?most?online browsing?is conducted?on mobile devices, and?a responsive site is a prerequisite for accessibility.?A non-responsive design can alienate?a large portion?of your audience and negatively affect your organic traffic.?With the adoption of smart devices such as TVs and cars, the?selection of frame?sizes,?and operational systems people use to browse the internet are becoming increasingly?fragmented.?Unfortunately, the more screens to optimize for, the higher the design and QA-testing costs will be.

Solution:?Adopt a mobile-first design approach, but?do not forget about?the desktop and wider screens.?Analyze your existing data and trends to prioritize screen?optimization?efforts. Where does the traffic come from, and on which devices do they convert? Offering a seamless experience across all devices requires full responsiveness, which requires continuous?testing of the site?on various screen sizes and resolutions to confirm its functionality.?Make sure your budget and resourcing plans take this into account.

6. Overlooking User Experience and Navigation

A beautiful website is only?useful?if users find it easy to navigate. Poor user experience (UX) can lead to high bounce rates and lost opportunities.

Solution:?Conduct thorough UX research, including user testing and feedback sessions.?Map out and understand?different?customer journeys for varying needs, audiences, and use cases. Prioritize intuitive navigation, clear calls to action, and accessible design.?For more on this, revisit the first section on?defining clear goals and objectives to ensure user experience is always a top priority.

7. Poor Design Choices

Following outdated design trends can make your website look unprofessional and irrelevant. Staying current with design practices is essential to maintaining a modern and appealing site. Accessibility, user experience, and page load speed are critical for your site's discoverability and performance. Poor design choices can lead to performance issues that are costly to fix afterwards.

Solution:?Research the latest design trends and best practices. Focus on clean, minimalist designs that enhance user experience. Avoid overly complex graphics and animations that can slow down your site and distract users.

8. Overlooking SEO During the Redesign Process

SEO is critical for driving organic traffic, yet it is often unintentionally or at least partially overlooked during redesign projects. Consequently, search engine rankings can drop dramatically after post-migration. AI-driven search assistants make this topic more relevant and complex than ever, as you need to?make sure?your pages rank both for human and AI-generated searches.

A common mistake is to have SEO as a singular user story on the backlog, but creating a search-engine-optimized website is not a press-of-a-button task; there are important considerations and steps to take throughout the requirements gathering and redesign process. Never assume the developers are SEO savvy and only create?SEO friendly?features. They make precisely and only what they are asked to create.

Solution:

Incorporate SEO considerations at every stage of the project. Start with an SEO audit of your current site to identify strengths and weaknesses.?Discuss the sitemap and SEO goals with the architect to?ensure?your SEO goals and development plans?are aligned.?During the redesign, ensure appropriate use of meta tags, headers, alt text for images, and internal linking.?Pay?special attention to the H1 Element to ensure it adapts to your content needs on different page templates. Post-launch, monitor your SEO performance and make necessary adjustments.

9. Overlooking Analytics and Performance Tracking

Everybody knows you need analytics to understand how well your website performs or where improvements are required. Similarly to SEO, effective analytics configuration is not a singular task, as it takes more than just installing the tracking pixel to facilitate effective performance tracking. Ignoring performance tracking requirements in the project planning phase can result in missed opportunities for optimization.

Solution:?Set up a comprehensive analytics and performance tracking plan before development so that the product owner and scrum master can ensure tracking needs?are considered?in all relevant tasks.?If your site serves multiple purposes for multiple audiences,?it is also a good idea to run?a task completion survey before and after the launch. Remember to?consider consent management and test?both?tracking and cookie behaviour before launch.

10. Failing?to Properly Migrate Content

Content migration is a critical aspect of a website redesign. Poorly managed migrations can lead to broken links, lost data, and a negative impact on customer experience and SEO. Even with all the newest tools and automation, I have yet to witness a migration that would have been completely automated. Your new website will likely have different page templates and new content features, so it is only logical that big chunks of the content also need restructuring.?

Solution:?Plan your content migration meticulously. Conduct a content audit to determine what needs to be migrated, updated, or discarded. Use tools and scripts to automate the process?where possible, and test thoroughly to ensure all content is correctly migrated. Reserve enough time and resources to plan and execute the migration.?Despite utilizing advanced automation capabilities, this process requires human effort to produce and validate.

Lastly, website renewal should never be an IT-driven project. The commercial teams should take ownership of the website to ensure the outcome fulfils?both?business goals and customer needs.?

By being aware of these common pitfalls and proactively addressing them, you can ensure a successful website redesign that meets your business objectives and provides a superior user experience.