Refreshing your website: 2 case studies
12/2/2021
It's 2021! Is it time to give your website a refresh?
If you want to keep visitors engaged, interested, and using your products or services you need to ensure that your website looks appealing and functions well.
Are you nourishing your website with fresh content? Are you shouting your name from the rooftops? Or are you a bit embarrased because you've been ignoring your site for years?
You don't necessarily have to completely rebuild your website but a bit of a revamp can make a world of difference.
Reasons for a refresh
- Tweaks to a company logo or change of colour palette, or if you have totally rebranded so the website no longer looks as if it is part of your business.
- Your site is unappealing and dated - first impressions count and most are design-related.
- You haven't updated the content for years and it is no longer relevant and doesn't reflect you or your service.
- Wanting to focus on a different aspect of your business.
- New functionality needed, like a blog or gallery.
- Ensuring your website is responsive for mobile devices. If it isn't, this could be costing your business. Tackling this issue can increase the amount of time visitors spen on your website and help you improve your search engine rankings.
- Improving user experience with changes to the navigation or adding a search facility.
- High bounce rate or low conversions - if people are visiting your site but not staying for long, not buying or signing up, a refresh may help.
- Low search engine rankings - this could be due to lack of relevant content or lack of updating content. You should also check your keywords, page titles and descriptions. Using an SEO expert or content manager / copywriter could be money well spent.
- Security concerns - an SSL certificate is crucial and you should be seeing a padlock in your browser and not a ‘not secure’ warning. This is easy to remedy and, if you have an online shop, can help boost sales.
Here are 2 clients who went down the route of a refresh.
ILLUMINATE CHARITY
The main reason for the refresh of the Illuminate Charity website was the fact that they wished to increase their focus on corporate work as a way of generating more income. The bright colours had worked well but they were now looking for a cleaner more minimalist/contemporary feel.
A lot of the content needed reworking to encompass the new business offerings and the client was able to do this themselves using the content management system. However, there were certain changes to the style sheets and functionality that they needed our help with.
The home page now has 2 clear entry points for visitors depending on whether they are an individual or a business. Rotating images also show the different aspect of the work Illuminate does.
https://illuminatecharity.org.uk/
SPRINGFIELD ADVICE AND LAW CENTRE
The Springfield Advice and Law Centre website was many years old and using outdated technology. The organisation had been desperate to revamp their site for some time, but the usual issues of staff resources and funding had prevented this. With this in mind, the refresh needed to be well thought out in order to use their budget as cost effectively as possible.
The Law Centres Network was encouraging local law centres to use the new branding but Springfield wanted to differentiate themselves and highlight the fact that much of their work revolved around mental health issues.
We created a new logo and branding for them and a suite of bespoke graphics that reflected the logo which can not only be used on the new website but on printed materials.
What else?
- A review of the content which was out of date.
- Retaining a simple clear structure for users.
- More prominent calls to action.
- Adding an SSL certificate.
- Making the site responsive for mobile devices.
If you'd like some feedback on your website contact Jane on 01223 873349 or email info@catfishwebdesign.com