Website Revamp: Stages & Its Differences with Redesign

For you website owners, have you ever heard of the term "website revamp"? Yes, revamp is an activity to improve a site's appearance and functionality.

This guide will discuss what a revamp is, the stages, and when you have to revamp your website.

Let's see the explanation below!

What is a Website Revamp?

Changing or improving the appearance and other elements of websites is usually done by webmasters or website owners.

The most common improvement made to a website is a revamp. Do you know what a website revamp is all about?

A "revamp" is an improvement made to improve the performance of an existing website by making a number of changes that affect its appearance and function.

These changes are generally made by updating several elements, such as the color scheme, images, fonts, and layout.

This activity can be done at any time to improve design, functionality, or other elements without having to start all over again.

For example, if you have a site consisting of a single main page that has been around for years and want to add more pages or change its layout, you can proceed without rebuilding the entire site from scratch.

This is what is called a revamp.

The Differences Between Revamp and Redesign

After reading the explanation above, you now know what a website revamp is. However, have you understood the difference with a redesign?

Redesign looks similar to a revamp in that both aim to improve the performance of an existing website.

However, a redesign involves completely reworking the layout, navigation, and functionality of the site.

Simply put, if a revamp is done to change some elements of a site, then a redesign is done to change the appearance of the site as a whole.

The redesign aims to create a new user experience while improving the information architecture and making content more accessible to them.

When viewed from a time perspective, redesign work usually takes up to 3–6 months to complete, while revamps generally require less time, namely one month or even less.

When Should Revamp Be Done?

So, when should you do a revamp to improve your site's performance? Find out the explanation in the following points!

1. Website Not User-Friendly

Based on data from MarketingCraft, around 88% of users do not want to return to a site when they have experienced a bad user experience when accessing it.

Therefore, you need to create an attractive and user-friendly website design with the aim of attracting the attention of users to your site.

As a site or business owner, you certainly want users to understand the message being conveyed in your marketing campaign.

However, if you push too hard and bombard users with less informative content, this will only make it difficult for users to digest the messages given.

If your site has a poor user experience, this is a sign that it needs a revamp ASAP.

2. Difficult Website to Manage

If you have to contact a web developer when you want to fix small things on your website, this is a sign that the website is difficult to manage.

Most 'old' websites are created using static HTML programming, which requires more expertise to master the HTML and CSS programming languages to improve the website.

Today, most websites use WordPress, which allows you to improve your site without having to be an expert in programming languages.

In fact, this CMS also allows multiple people to work on your site simultaneously.

For example, as a website administrator, you can set permissions for each user about which areas of the website they can and cannot access.

And if at any time you need to revoke a user's access to a particular page, with WordPress, you can do it with just a few mouse clicks without needing to be a web programming expert.

3. Drop in Leads & Sales

As you know, there are many factors that can contribute to a decrease in leads and sales, one of which is user trust.

If your site doesn't have enough trust, users often don't take further steps, such as making a purchase, requesting an appointment, or downloading files for free from your website.

You need to make users feel that they are in the right place, and that your site can answer what they are looking for.

Make users feel that doing business with you is a safe and enjoyable experience.

Stages in Website Revamp

After knowing when you have to revamp a website, you need to know the stages of doing a website revamp.

Here's the explanation!

1. Preparation

In preparing for a website revamp, you need to do the following three things:

• Take an inventory: Analyze your website, then determine what needs to be improved and what needs to be removed. If you want to perform data-driven analysis, you can take a look at your website's Google Analytics. Keep pages that people visit a lot, and remove pages that perform poorly.
• Develop content: You can develop content in various forms, be it text, images, videos, or other forms required by your website.
• Store valuable assets in the cloud: Revamping a website can be a bad thing if you don't manage it properly. Store all your content in cloud-based storage, such as Google Drive, so that it is easily accessible on all devices when needed.

2. Design

In the next stage, you can start designing the design for your website. Feel free to use assets in the form of high-resolution images to maintain the comfort of users when accessing your website.

Also, use design elements that are familiar to many people. Research how your competitor's site looks, then implement things that are not on the site for your website.

Don't forget to write persuasive copy for users in order to attract their attention and encourage them to visit your website.

3. Development

At this stage, it's time to start rebuilding your website.

In the revamp process, it's common for webmasters to build a new site on the development server while their existing site stays online as normal.

When the new version is ready to go, you can archive your old website and immediately migrate the newly redesigned one to your domain.

If you use WordPress, this kind of activity is often called staging.

In the staging process, you can execute all the ideas you have prepared to compile your website into a newer version, whether it's in terms of appearance, content, or other functionality.

4. Launch

The final website revamp stage is the launch or release itself. However, before releasing it, make sure to do some tests first.

You can open the links on your website to ensure that all pages continue to work properly.

Also, don't forget to back up your latest system to avoid attacks that can occur at any time.

If you feel that your website is ready, then launch its latest version.

So, that's all the discussion of what a revamp is and the stages of revamping your site.

If you don't have enough resources to revamp, you can use SEO services from cmlabs.

SEO services from cmlabs are not only able to assist you in developing an SEO strategy but can also help you manage your website's performance in detail.

We will help you create an SEO revamp check-list so that your revamp activities run smoothly, and prevent your website from experiencing a decrease in organic traffic.