Is your website showing its age? Does it no longer adequately reflect your business and your offer? Is your website not attracting enough or the wrong customers?

A website relaunch or revamp (a complete overhaul of a website) is a large project, sometimes larger than building a new Website from scratch.

Here I will show you how a website relaunch works in eight steps. You will see why each of these steps helps visitors read and understand your site more easily, stay longer, and convert into genuine prospects and ultimately customers. Customers willing to stay and / or shop.

What is a website relaunch?

A website relaunch is an extensive optimization of your existing website, or a completely new version of your website, which is then published at the same address (URL) as the old one. This often involves extensive adjustments to your website content, web design and technology.

Not every website customization is a relaunch. In some cases, for example, “only” the content  or the design is restructured. As a rule, however, changes in content often result in optimizations for the design or vice versa.

A website relaunch generally consists of the preparation (3 steps), the concept for the implementation (2 steps) and the implementation (3 steps). In this article, I’ll show you what each of these steps entails.

A website relaunch brings structure and clarity – for your customers and for you

If you’re thinking about revamping your website, you most likely don’t have a clear picture in your head of how you want your website to look after the relaunch. This is completely normal.

You can’t have a finished idea of your website if you still don’t have a clue as to where there is room for improvement.

Before a website relaunch, it is important to be clear about the goal you want to achieve with your website. And what can be improved, changed and expanded to achieve this goal.

This is also the reason why I only define precise measures for a website with my customers after we have taken the first three steps of preparation together.

The eight steps that are important in your website relaunch:

#1 View and evaluate the status quo

In the first step, it is essential that you have absolute clarity about two things:

Where are you now with your business? For example, has your target group changed or expanded? What do your offers and services look like (and with which offers do you make the most sales)?
How do you present your business to the outside world compared to your competitors?

And where do you stand with your website? What bothers you about the “old” website? Before you start optimizing your website, you need to be sure what things are not working well on your current website.

• Does your website reflect the status quo of your business and the way you want customers to perceive you?
• Is the structure (the general structure) of the website confusing, so that customers cannot find their way around?
• Or does the content theoretically fit the needs of your customers, but it is difficult to read and customers do not notice it?

You need answers to these and other questions before you consider your relaunch.

When I start the relaunch of a website with my customers, I work with a detailed questionnaire.

#2 Define goals

Where do you want to take your business (and your website)? This is the second important question when preparing your website relaunch.

Do you plan to adjust the target group?
Do you want to change your offer structure? How do you want your business to grow?

I record the status quo and the goals in an overview so that I can work out a clearly structured concept for the revised website together with my customers.
This is the only way to put together a timetable for the extent of website optimization.

#3 The Customer Profile: How will you target visitors on your website to earn their trust?

Typically, the goal of your website is: “Get more converting customers, or more sales.”

To do this, it is important that you know the needs and problems of your customers.

The customer profile ensures that you always evaluate your website through the eyes of your customers during the relaunch.

How do customers describe their problems and wishes in their own words? How can you present and formulate solutions to these problems on the website accordingly?

If you can’t answer these questions yet, customer interviews with targeted questions for your customers will help so that you no longer no longer  in the dark.

#4 The concept for your website relaunch

The status quo, the goals and the knowledge of the needs of the customers are together the basic structure for the concrete content and visual planning of your website.

In order to put together a roadmap for the website relaunch, I tackle the content structure of the website with my customers in the fourth step.

The structure of the website includes points such as:

• The structure of the website navigation bar (which pages will there be? Which are the most important and which are subordinate?)
• Which content is relevant for the target group?
• How are the individual pages of the website structured and what should the visitor do there?

All these points are part of the website concept, which I record for my clients as a structured overview (mind map / organization chart).

#5 What content is up to date? What will be deleted? And where does your website need new content?

Texts, images, videos … with a website that has grown organically, a lot accumulates over time. It happens quickly and is quite normal that you as a website operator lose track of things in some places. You might have Posts or Pages from many Years ago which are not relevant anymore or worse are NOT accurate and give false Information.

If you have the website concept clearly in mind thanks to the last four steps, it is much easier to answer the following questions:

• Which content is current and relevant and stays on the website?
• What can stay but needs to be placed elsewhere?
• Which content can be deleted?
• And where does your website need new texts, images, videos … relevant and of value for your Customers?

#6 Now it’s about the looks: the design of your website

With the help of your website concept, you have all the tools at hand so that the website relaunch can now also be implemented visually in the web design:

• You know which things you want to (have) optimized on your website and how the website will be structured.
• You know what relevant content will appeal to customers who are willing to invest.
• And you have a plan for sorting and structuring that content in a way that site visitors can find their way around quickly.

Only at this point we have all the information that is needed to revise the web design.

If I were to start with the web design for my customers earlier in the process, there would be a lot of information that was missing in between.

The website concept has answered the lion’s share of all previously open questions. Now it’s a matter of putting everything in a visual form and formatting content for the website to be easy to read.

It’s about conveying emotions and creating a professional first impression on your website so that visitors stay and read.

And it’s about making the site user-friendly, so potential customers know what to do next.

#7 Content, design and technology: The final steps in your website relaunch

The newly structured content, the revised web design and the technology come together. The new website is being implemented step by step.

Depending on the extent of the optimization, it makes sense to approach the pages of the website individually and gradually replace the old individual pages online.

#8 Update regularly…

This is the last step. (YOUR last step 🙂 ) And at the same time there are many small steps, because a website is never finished.

To ensure that the website is always up to date after the relaunch, represents your business professionally and addresses your target customers in a targeted manner, update it regularly from now on.
Take a look at your website concept from time to time and check whether it still fits.

Your website grows with your business. Target customers, offers and the way you want to present your business will always change.

If you continuously adapt your website, a major relaunch will soon no longer be necessary. And you will be self-confident in the acquisition of your website in the long term.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways I can support you:

Do you know the 5 biggest dangers that deter visitors to your website – and cause them to stop coming back? 

In order for visitors to become customers, they need to see 3 things on your website:
1. “This is the right place for me!” A type of Feel Good about the Website.
2. “I can do this to find out more.”
3. “And I can do this to find out more about the offer.” You can find out how to show you these 3 things
Do you want to optimize your website and are unsure what makes sense? 
This is completely normal. When it comes to their own website, every business owner is a bit blind.
Use my website check and my fresh perspective as an expert.
I’ll show you what you can specifically optimize to win more customers.

I will design a website for you that will attract customers.
A website that shows your personality and inspires trust. So that your customers immediately feel that you are the right person and that they are making inquiries.