MAY WE SUGGEST

How to keep your visitors happy when you plan a web site re-design

Today I’m going to talk about the want or need to change the design of your site, not only for sales but also in keeping up with trends. So for all you web site owners looking at doing a site overhaul, this article is for you.

As I write this article, I find myself looking at my own bad habits. At heart I still have my old web designer and graphic artist habit of always being on the look out for fresh new ideas in design and layout. While this is both a blessing and a curse this constant desire to change my site is not good for the visitor and since they pay my bills, I work for them, so I’d better keep them happy.

Let’s look at some common things about almost all people:

1) People don’t like change
2) People don’t like to re-learn things
3) People like to find things where they expect to

When you do a site overhaul there’s a good chance you’re going to cause all three of those things to happen to your visitor, which, if done wrong, can take a web site with decent traffic and reduce it to none. Needless to say, this is not what you want.

Think about your own experiences. Have you ever had a web site, program or tool you used, then they introduce a “new and easier to use interface” and now you can’t find anything? How did that make you feel? Probably pretty frustrated!

So how do you lessen the impact of doing a site overhaul so you don’t offend every visitor? Depending on your budget, the time you have, and the complexity of the change consider the following:

Beta testing - Many large sites do what’s call a “beta test” of the new design. Often they provide a link to follow where visitors can see the new design, allowing the company to get feedback and test out all the workings before they put it live for every visitor to see.

Separate sales pages - Are you changing because you need to or want to? If you’re selling products consider running separate sales or landing pages that are not hooked to your main site. This allows you to make changes as often as you need to without hurting your site. If you need a hand to increase your sales, check out Make ‘em Buy tools.

Get feedback - By creating a few different site designs that can only be accessed off line or do up drawings you can get feedback before you put the changes live for everyone to see. Find out what people think about the look, if there are navigating troubles or even compatibly problems such as screen size or browser issues.

Make changes in stages - Have a set plan to do minor changes and roll them out over time. If this method is possible with what you want to change, it can be very effective as your customer can gradually get used to the new design. It also makes the changes less overwhelming for you or your designer being just one section at a time.

Now that you have a few ideas for how to make the changes less of an impact on your visitors how will you know if your new design works? Well that’s the easy part; people will either love it or hate it, there seems to be very little grey area on this. Don’t worry, whether by either leaving your site and never returning or sending you the dreaded “What were you thinking” e-mail they will tell you!

I hope you found what I had to offer helpful. Now’s your chance add your suggestions, comments about how your experience went or even write your own question or article for all to read...