After a number of minor facelifts and tweaks to our 2007 website we decided the time was nigh to do a complete redesign! Most people would assume that a dated visual design would be the driver behind a new Over the past few years Netstarter had grown beyond a web design agency. We made some strategic hires  in order to build up a holistic digital offering in ecommerce, SEO, SEM and analytics. The current website however still looked like just design and build websites which accounts for about 60% of the business’s turnover. The main problems we found when we reviewed our website:

• Content was dated and did not cater to our target audience and their requirements.
• Site architecture had morphed into a site that was no longer easy to use or intuitive to navigate.
• There were far too many variations of forms and page templates.
• We were not promoting our full range of services effectively.
• Too many poorly written pages had been added to the site over the years without any approval process by management before publishing.
• There was a very limited amount of social media touch points integrated into the website.

It was time to start again and get back to basics!

The Redesign Process

Step 1: Goal setting
Our main goal for the new site was to increase the number of business leads and job applications received through the website.

In order to do so we believed that including the use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube video and Flickr galleries) would help create more rapport with our audience and give users a window into the everyday life at Netstarter.

Step 2: Information Architecture
We developed the sitemap for the new website followed by the wireframes and user journeys. The key conversion actions on the site included new business enquiries through the “get a quote” and contact us form, and job enquiries by candidates through the recruitment section.

In order to understand what information people were looking for we identified the main persona types and defined their goals for the website. Examples include:

• Potential staff looking for open jobs
• New potential clients looking for a particular service offering or examples of work
• Press/media looking for information to support their news article
• Industry people interested in reading our blog/news

Reviewing our Google Analytics data was extremely helpful in qualifying our assumptions.

Step 3: Design and Build
While the site was going through the design and build phases we re-wrote all the content of the site from scratch, ensuring the messaging and information was relevant and keywords for targeted page terms were included.

Step 4: SEO Migration
Our SEO team ensured all pages were correctly redirected as 301’s and any pages carried over were siloed into the correct sections. We also re-wrote all meta-tags and set up all the internal linking. Our analytics team set up tracking for complete visibility across our organic and paid search campaign.

Should you consider a redesign?

As a business grows and adapts to internal and external influences, it is important to make sure the website changes with it. Since a majority of people who visit your website are new to your business, it’s extremely important that your website is always up to date. When a call comes through from your website do you really want to be spending the next 10 minutes explaining what it is that you really do when your website should already have done it for you?
Here are a few tips to help you decide if it’s time to revamp your website. If you say no to most of these then it’s probably time to redesign.

1. Does your website accurately portray your business as it stands to new users?
2. Within a few seconds can users tell what you do, why you’re the best at it and why they should be using your business? Clear value propositions front and centre on the homepage is probably the best way to assess this.
3. Is your website converting visitors into leads? Even if you don’t sell through the website you still need to know how often people are filling in enquiry forms or picking up the phone through analytics (even phone calls can be tracked these days). A conversion rate above 3% is pretty good going.
4. Are you embracing social media on your website? If users can’t tweet, like or +1 your site and your content you’re probably missing out on new business by way of social advocacy.
5. Do you get positive comments on your website? If people don’t come out and say it openly then why not ask customers when you have them on the phone. Adding services like Kampyle will give users the opportunity to give site feedback in seconds.

  We hope you like our new website and if you have any feedback please let us know.