Refreshing your website: 3 case studies

17/4/2019

 

Back in January we wrote an article about spring cleaning your business. It’s important to keep your website content fresh and up to date on a regular basis but sometimes you get to a point where you just need to zhuzh things up a bit.

 

You don't feel you need to completely rebuild the website, so what's the solution? A website refresh? But how do you know what's right for you?

 

Reasons for a refresh

1. Tweaks to a company logo or change of colour palette.
2. Wanting to focus on a different aspect of your business.
3. New functionality needed, like a blog or gallery.
4. Keeping up with changes in technology e.g. ensuring your website is responsive for mobile devices.
5. Improving user experience with changes to the navigation or adding a search facility.

Reasons for a redesign

1. If your website is looking very dated.
2. If you have not updated the content for years and your business has changed substantially so that the site no longer reflects your service.
3. If your website is using outdated technology this can have an impact on usability and ranking.
4. If you have totally rebranded so the website no longer looks as if it is part of your business.
5. If you need to add functionality that will affect the way the site works e.g. an online shop.

 

Sometimes it can be more economical to go for a complete redesign and build, but it really depends on what you are trying to achieve.

 

Recently we have been working with 3 clients who went down the route of a refresh.

 

 

STONE GLOBE LIGHTS

This website was nearly 7 years old and usually we would recommend a redesign at this point. However, because it contained an online shop it would have been a much larger investment for the client. We also felt that we could substantially change the look and feel of the site with a new layout for the home page and adjustment to the colour palette without starting from scratch.

 

 

 

 

The old website had a black background which worked 7 years ago, but now felt dated. We lightened everything up using white and shades of pale grey. We added rotating images to the home page and made these much larger to fill the screen.

 

Latest blog articles were removed from the home page as the client was not able to keep this as up to date as she wished.  There is now a clear link to the shop instead.

 

The content on the product pages had grown substantially which meant a lot of scrolling for users. We installed a tabbed menu so that visitors can read sections at a time and not feel so overwhelmed by text.

 

For years the client had been adding photographs of her lighting products in situ to a plain web page and calling it a gallery. However, due to the amount of photos on the page it had become very cumbersome to view on mobile devices. We have now provided her with a proper gallery, which is also much easier to keep updated.

 

 

 

https://www.stoneglobelights.co.uk

 

 

RASASC RAPE CENTRE

There were several reasons for a refresh of this website:

 

• The organisation was keen to tweak their logo.
• Altering the focus of the home page very slightly so that there was a prominent link to ‘getting involved’ where visitors could find out more about fundraising, volunteering and making a donation.
• Using more photographs.
• Changes to the navigation were required and the content needed a lot of updating.
• RASASC had been growing their publications resources and wished to develop this section of the website.

 

 

 

The site was still fresh and inviting so we did not want to completely change the look and feel, but introducing rotating images on the home page to direct visitors to specific pages and the use of graphics has made a world of difference.  Minimal changes with maximum impact.

 

Adding a database for the publications was something that we could ‘bolt on’ without too much trouble. It means that these can be downloaded from the website or there is a link out to Amazon for purchase. Developing this area into a valuable resource will now be very easy for the client.

 

 

 

https://www.rapecentre.org.uk

 

 

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/