How Long Does A Website Redesign Take

A website redesign is a big step in your business journey. When executed correctly, a redesign can be a very effective way to attract new leads, increase your SEO, and bring in more business. It can also be an excellent way to show potential clients how much you care about them. Before we dive into how long it takes to redesign a site, let's start with the following:

How often should you redesign your website?

This is a great question and one that is often overlooked. Technology and design trends move fast. Your website is your digital storefront, and you want a brand that accurately reflects your business.

A site refresh every 2-3 years is reasonable, but there is no hard and fast rule. You will need to decide based on your business's current state.

What factors determine whether I need a website redesign?

Here are some factors to help you decide if you need a website redesign now:

1. The Company's branding has changed

A change in branding is an obvious factor. Suppose your branding has changed across other platforms, such as social media or print advertising. In that case, your website needs to be redesigned to match. Otherwise, clients who visit will be confused when they see separate branding.

2. Not mobile friendly

Another big reason to redesign is if your site is not mobile-friendly. According to Google, nearly 60% of all website users use mobile devices. If your site is not mobile-friendly, you are potentially losing many customers.

3. Slow Loading Speeds

Loading speeds are essential to user experience and Google page ranking. Run your site through Google Pagespeed Insights. If your page takes longer than three seconds to load, you need to consider a redesign. Research has shown that after three seconds, visitors get impatient and start to leave, so you want to keep those load speeds below that threshold.

4. Outdated Design

As your first impression, your website should not give the vibe of a closet that hasn't been cleaned out in the last 10 years. An up-to-date design is essential to show customers you care about your business and want to do great things for them.

OK, I need a website redesign, so how long does it take?

Several factors determine how long a redesign will take. We will review those factors here, then discuss the stages of a redesign and how the factors affect each stage. This will be a beast of a blog post, but it will give you all the info you need to know!

Factors affecting the length of a website redesign

Size

Our first significant factor is size. Size is a relatively straightforward factor, but the larger the site, the longer the redesign will take.

In general, at Woodmont Interactive, we break sites into one of three categories:

1. Small (5 or less pages)

2. Medium (5 - 50 pages) and

3. Large (50 or more pages and/or e-commerce sites)

Complexity

What you need the site to do will also affect the design time. If the site needs many custom Javascript and user account systems, the time to complete will be much longer than if you want a single static page. The complexity generally follows the site sizes above—although not always. Some single-page web apps can have quite a lot of complexity.

Design Scope

For example, when you remodel your kitchen, you must decide how much of a facelift you will do. Do you want to paint the cabinets or tear down a wall and make the whole thing bigger? With your website, do you want to add a new logo and change some colors, or do you want to blow the entire thing up with a new site structure, new content, and new bells and whistles? These choices will significantly affect the time it takes for your site to be redesigned.

How many stakeholders are going to be involved in the process?

The more stakeholders you have involved, the more you will have to reach out to get feedback and then make changes based on that feedback. Do you have a sales team that wants input into the copy on the website or how sales calls are booked? Someone must consult them and incorporate their changes into the final design. The more external stakeholders you have, the longer it will take to finish the redesign.

What are the steps in a website redesign?

OK, this is where we get to the meat and potatoes section of the post. At Woodmont Interactive, we follow a simple 5 step process for redesigning a website. We will review each stage, what it entails, and how long it takes. Think of the timeframe for each phase as a sliding scale. The more complexity, larger size, design scope, and stakeholders you have, the greater chance you will be on the longer side of the time it takes for the redesign. The fewer factors you have, the greater the probability your redesign will be on the shorter side of the equation.

1. Discovery (1 - 2 weeks)

Discovery is where we talk about your goals. Not just for your website but also for your business. What do you want to get out of this redesign, and more importantly, how can you accomplish that? In this stage, you want to create an ideal client profile and start to think about how you want to address that client's needs. If you are a wedding photographer, is the copy on your website addressing the right market? How about your photo galleries? Do you have the best wedding pictures in those galleries to show clients? Discovery is where you work to address those items and devise a plan for your online marketing campaigns.

2. Design (2-4 weeks)

Design is where you get to work and start putting that plan into action. It begins with wireframes to get things fleshed out and determine where the different elements go on the page. Design is where you will make some decisions based on the demographics you decided to target in stage 1. For example, if you are targeting wedding photography, you will want a nice big hero image of your best wedding photo. As a therapist, you will create copy targeting the clients you want to attract. Each decision in the Design phase will build upon your choices in the Discovery phase.

3. Content (2-4 weeks)

Some content creation can happen in tandem with the design phase, but this is where you want to start writing the copy that speaks to your ideal client. There are whole books on how to write copy, but generally, you will want to speak to your ideal client's needs and how you can solve their problems. If you are targeting residential landscaping, for example, maybe you want to have some copy that addresses that pain point for clients that their lawn doesn't look as good as the neighbor's - "Get a lawn that is the envy of the neighborhood!" Whatever it is, creating content to address the pain points of your ideal clients is critical.

4. Development (2-4 weeks)

Development is where it all comes together. The design and content are coded into a responsive website that is perfect for your business. This stage is where the technical magic happens. You put together your content management system and any front-end or back-end code, set up hosting servers, and do all the fun technical stuff. Once this is all setup, you move on to the final stage.

5. Testing (1 - 2 weeks)

You want to make sure everything is running smoothly. A week or two of testing will do precisely that. You might need to work out a few kinks, and this stage can be tough because you want to get that site up and running, but it is critical to getting great results. You want the user experience to be great for your visitors so they turn into clients, and having everything working properly is a critically important step.

6. Launch (1 day)

Now, it's time to launch that site. Adding marketing to your launch will generate traffic and buzz around your redesign. And wouldn't you know it? We have an article here about creating a website launch announcement. That article offers a lot of ideas about generating excitement concerning your new site.

Conclusion

This article taught us a lot. We started by discussing how long a redesign should take, exploring how often you should redesign your site, looking at factors to help determine if you need a website redesign, reviewing the steps in the redesign process, and then calculating how long those steps typically take to complete. We hope you found this article helpful. If we can help you, don't hesitate to reach out.