10 Tips to Relaunch Your Website the Right Way

A Simple Guide to Relaunching Your Website

This article will help you

• Evaluate the choice between open-source content management systems such as WordPress and Joomla or software as a service (Saas) platforms like Duda, Aespire’s recommend platform for high-performing websites
• Get a 10-step plan to relaunching any website
• Know the steps you must do to ensure your website is error-free after your website launches
• Discover the essential add-ons that professional agencies use to empower visitors to share content and the security tool you need to protect your business from hackers and malware.

Your marketing and sales funnel should include at least five elements:

1. A clear marketing message that positions your brand as the obvious choice for prospective customers
2. A mobile-first website
3. Lead generation giveaways
4. A prospect nurturing email campaign
5. A sales email campaign

There are many reasons why you should consider redesigning your website after you take the first step to clarify your messaging. The most important is to send the signal to prospects and customers that something is different. Like the story from the Bible, new wine belongs in a new wine skin.

When it comes to relaunching your website or a website redesign, you have two choices:

• Keep your website on the platform or content management system it is currently on, regardless of security concerns or its ease of use, or
• Migrate your website and content to a new platform that is easier to manage, more secure, and will help your business grow.

As you consider your next step, think about the manageability of the software platform you choose or that your website developer recommends. Open-source platforms such as WordPress or Joomla are vulnerable to hackers and malware that can take your site offline and damage your business reputation.

Your choices for website builders include:

• Open source content management systems require constant maintenance and proxy firewalls services such as Sucuri to protect them from hacking and other vulnerabilities.
• A SaaS platform is cloud-based. The developer maintains the code, and you maintain your content.

Your website relaunch process begins with a visit to Google analytics. If you’ve had a website for a long time, your website will have product and information pages, lead-generation features, and a blog.

1. Begin your website design by reviewing your website traffic and creating a spreadsheet to sort the website content in two ways:

• Most-visited site content pages
• Most visited blog pages
• Transfer your domain name to Namecheap.com for greater flexibility and control over your website

2. Create a new website content map to plan your menus and website blueprint.

1. Plan your top menu: 4-6 links to direct visitors to services, shop, process, blog, and contact pages at a minimum.
2. Plan your website footer: If you have more pages than will fit on the top menu, plan for 3-4 columns of site page lists in the footer of your website. These will be the pages that website content map review found to be popular. Think of a content map as the path people follow from your homepage to content you want them to see).

3. Create a plan for the content you want to migrate.

• Break down your content into blog articles, marketing content, and lead magnets. Analyze the top-visited pages in a spreadsheet and sort the list by the number of visits over 12 months.
• Sorting your content by visits will reveal your most valuable content. Now you have the insights you need to reduce the amount of content on your website.

4. Create a URL migration and URL redirect strategy.

• Try to keep redirects to a minimum, and plan for a “404 Page Not Found” page with a search box so visitors can find content that moved.
• Aespire is well-known as a leading branding agency for service companies. Our core services are listed under the branding and marketing Capabilities menu, making it easy to direct people to a specific page.

5. Create a core marketing message that shows your customer a vision of success

Your brand messaging — and related marketing — doesn't have to be complex. It needs to be memorable and repeatable.

• Make it clear that your business understands the biggest problem or pain your ideal preferred customers are trying to solve,
• Present your offer or solution that will relieve their pain and solve their problem, and
• Clearly explain how people will feel and what they experience after they choose to work with your service company.

6. Design the look and feel of your visitor experience

• Life and business are complicated for many people, so keep your website design simple and easy-to-read. What is most important is your user experience.
• Create a simple color palette for your website with a couple of primary colors, secondary colors, and vibrant color to highlight your call-to-action buttons.
• Select fonts that are easy-to-read on screens. Keep the contrast high between dark fonts and light backgrounds.

7. Select images that show your clients what they will experience and feel after they use your products or services

• There are many websites that offer royalty-free website photography.  Duda makes it easy with integration with millions of photos inside the platform.
• Show positive outcomes and results that reveal success.

8. Build your pages. Be sure to add:

• Meta description, meta title, and a social sharing image so search engines can properly index your website.
• Learn the simple steps for search engine optimization.
• On your contact page or in your footer, place a Google location map (essential for local search).
• A website “fat footer” that contains all the links, contact info, and links that don’t belong in your navigation bar.
• A thin footer at the very bottom with copyright, site map, privacy and cookie policy, and home page links.

9. Preview and test your website on desktop, tablet, and mobile views

• Duda makes previewing your website easy with a website preview feature. Check out how the Mister Sparky Salt Lake website appears on desktop, tablet, and mobile.

10. Launch your website and update any external links that might reference page URLS that changed

• Once the website is live, conduct a website audit to check for broken links and other issues. It’s nearly impossible to catch everything before you launch, so the website is a critical aspect of a website relaunch.

Once you’ve launched your website — don’t forget to celebrate!

Finishing Touches for Service Company Marketing Website Relaunch

There are always a few finishing touches to add to your website that help visitors make the most of your site and earn their trust:

• Install an auto-updating website privacy policy to minimize risk and maintain compliance. States and countries are proposing laws that will allow consumers to sue businesses anywhere in the US for not having a compliant Privacy Policy. We recommend Termageddon to help you comply with CalOPPA, CCPA, GDPR and more.