Is your website design feeling a bit outdated? Do you want a new one? Of course you do. Who doesn’t? In this article, I’m going to break down why you should never radically redesign your website.

Radical Site Redesigns (RSR) are one of the worst things especially if your business is already up, running and making money.  When you do a radical site redesign, things can go massively wrong. Even if they don’t go wrong and your new design looks better and it loads faster, it doesn’t mean you’re going to make the same amount of money.

The biggest factor that people forget about when they’re doing redesigns is conversion optimisation.

How do you know the new design is going to convert as well as your old design?  Yes, it could convert better and if it does that’s awesome! But what if it doesn’t convert as well? You’re going to be losing money. For that reason you never want to do a radical site redesign.

If your design is outdated, so what should you do? Of course you want to stay up-to-date, be fresh, cool and hip. Well, the answer is an Evolutionary Site Redesign (ESR).

1. Buyer Personas

First you have to make sure the design represents your brand well by researching your buyer personas. Who is your ideal client? Take a look at your current database. What resonates with them?

2. Ask Questions

Next ask yourself a few honest questions. The more you ask, the better.

• Why do you need to redesign your website?
• What need or business goals do you have for your website that aren’t being met by the current version?
• What are the most important calls-to-action (CTAs) on your site?
• When analyzing your competitors’ sites, what do you like and not like about their websites?
• How much extra work will be involved and how much will it cost?

3. Optimisation tests

Next start to tweak each page. You do this element by element, page by page. Follow each tweak with an a/b test.  These tests can be done using Optimizely or CrazyEgg. See which design drives more revenue.

If you’re old ugly one drives more revenue you probably want to keep it. If the new one drives more then switch to the new one and then you can slowly roll it out to the rest of your site.

But you want to do an a/b test to ensure that whatever decision you make, it isn’t going set your business back and cause you to lose money.

Done correctly, a website redesign can boost conversion, enhance brand presence and pre-convince the buyer. If done incorrectly your website will lose its ranking, traffic, conversion and your money – lots of it. Ultimately, ending up as one of the horror stories here.

To conclude, don’t do a Radical Site Redesign (RSR), do an Evolutionary Site Redesign (ESR). Change up your page design, tweak each page and when you do, run an A/B test to ensure that your conversions aren’t going down. So, when was the last time you updated your web site pages?