Are you considering a website redesign? Maybe you just want to improve the overall look and feel of your site, or perhaps you’re looking to add new features to improve functionality. Today, it’s especially important to have a website that is mobile-friendly. No matter your reasons, there’s one crucial step that should be the foundation of any website project: research.
Thorough website research allows you to gather data and insights that will ultimately guide you toward creating a user-friendly and optimized website. This, in turn, drives more traffic, enhances customer experience, and boosts brand satisfaction. PGN Agency, a marketing and branding agency in Royal Oak, is regularly working on website design and website development projects. When you trust a proper web design agency with your URL, you’ll launch a website that screams OMG!
Unlocking User Needs and Business Goals
Your website is your brand’s headquarters, often the first place potential customers will stop on their buying journey with your business. If it is not optimized for your users, it is a waste of space on the world wide web. By leveraging research and looking at key insights, you and your team can achieve the following:
- Understand user motivations: Why are people visiting your site? What are they hoping to achieve?
- Learn user needs and wants: What information are they looking for? What products or services are they interested in?
- Evaluate existing features and potential enhancements: Is your current website meeting user needs? Are there features that could be improved or added?
- Determine content migration strategy: Which content from your old site should be carried over to the new one?
- Create clear website requirements: A well-defined plan based on user needs and business goals.
At PGN Agency, we take a three-pronged approach to website research, giving you a comprehensive understanding of your target audience, their website behavior, and the content that resonates with them. This includes primary, internal, and competitive research.
Primary Research: Going Straight to the Source
Conducting primary research with existing and potential customers allows you to directly understand their needs, wants, and pain points regarding your website. This can reveal valuable insights into what’s working well, what needs improvement, and what features are missing.
Primary research can uncover broad user behavior patterns and motivations, as well as specific user feedback on content, functionality, and overall website experience. It can also highlight the most common reasons for user visits, key functionalities users find essential, and areas where the website can be more user-friendly.
Primary research may include interviews, surveys, and A/B testing.
Internal Research: Unearthing Hidden Gems in Your Data
Web analytics are a goldmine of website performance data, including page views, time spent on the page, and typical user navigation paths. Analyzing this data can reveal hidden insights that help you focus on specific pages or functionalities that need improvement.
Cataloging all your existing website content, including pages, functionalities, and tools, is another key aspect of internal research. Analyzing this data can help you understand why customers are contacting customer service instead of using the website. Are they looking for information that’s not available on the website? Are they struggling to complete a task? Understanding these pain points can guide you towards adding missing content or implementing new functionalities to your website redesign.
Competitive Research: Benchmarking Against the Best
Analyzing your competitors’ websites can reveal opportunities to differentiate your site and identify industry-standard content or functionalities that might be missing from your website. It’s also insightful to look beyond your direct competitors at websites with exceptional user experiences (UX) to understand the latest trends in features, content, and navigation.
As always, make sure you are staying true to your brand when you are redesigning your website. Just because it is a new design doesn’t mean it is a new brand. With the help of a branding agency like PGN Agency, you can rest assured knowing that your brand is in the best hands.
Website Optimization: A Continuous Journey
The world of technology, user expectations, and customer needs is constantly evolving. Therefore, website improvement shouldn’t be a one-time project. Here’s how to ensure your website stays ahead of the curve:
- Continuously Monitor Website Metrics: Regularly review website metrics like page views and traffic to identify areas for improvement and implement data-driven changes.
- Stay Ahead of the Competition: Conduct regular competitive research to ensure your website remains competitive in terms of content, functionality, and user experience.
- Enlist in the help of Monthly Maintenance: Monthly website maintenance is important for many reasons. One, website maintenance ensures your plug-ins stay up-to-date. Two, regular maintenance is great for updating content, photos, and pages on your website. And three, monthly website maintenance ensures your website is properly backed up. PGN Agency protects all of our client’s websites with rigorous monthly maintenance. If your site goes down, we’ll be the first to know!
Investing in a Great Website Design Agency
Optimizing your website for user experience and search engines is an ongoing process, but you don’t have to do it alone. PGN Agency can be your partner throughout the entire journey, from initial research and planning to design, development, and beyond. We’ve helped numerous clients across various industries create successful websites, and we’re confident we can do the same for you. Contact PGN Agency today to discuss your website project and see how we can help you achieve your online goals.