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Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!
Seth’s blog post on “Things to ask before you redo your website” is a must read for everyone involved in online marketing.  Seriously. If you haven’t seen it yet, go read it now.
What I love most about this list is the way it segregates into sub-components or elaborations on Future Now’s three questions that are the basis of Persuasion Architecture:
1) Who is coming to the site?
2) What is it they are trying to accomplish?
3) What action do we want them to take, and how do we ensure this matches up with what they are trying to accomplish? In other words, what do they need to know/feel/believe in order to confidently take that action?
Separating out Seth’s List
Here’s how I see Seth’s list falling into those categories:
1) Who is coming to the site?
- Who are we trying to please? If it’s the boss, what does she want? Is impressing a certain kind of person important? Which kind?
- Who are we trying to reach? Is it everyone? Our customers? A certain kind of prospect?
- What are the sites that this group has demonstrated they enjoy interacting with?
- Do people find the site via word of mouth? Are they looking to answer a specific question?
- Will the site need to be universally accessible? Do issues of disability or language or browser come into it?
2) What is it they are trying to accomplish?
- “If it’s the boss [that we are trying to please], what does she want?”
- “Are they looking to answer a specific question?
- Does showing up in the search engines matter? If so, for what terms? At what cost? Will we be willing to compromise any of the things above in order to achieve this goal?
3) What action do we want them to take…what do they need to know/feel/believe in order to confidently take that action?
- What is the goal of the site?
- In other words, when it’s working great, what specific outcomes will occur?
- Are we trying to close sales?
- Are we telling a story?
- Are we earning permission to follow up?
- Are we hoping that people will watch or learn?
- Do we need people to spread the word using various social media tools?
- Are we building a tribe of people who will use the site to connect with each other?
- Is there ongoing news and updates that need to be presented to people?
- Is the site part of a larger suite of places online where people can find out about us, or is this our one sign post?
- Is that information high in bandwidth or just little bits of data?
- Do we want people to call us?
- How many times a month would we like people to come by? For how long?
Operational [and larger] Questions
Yet, while Seth’s persuasive questions are covered within these three categories, there’s a pile of operational questions left over:
- How many people on your team have to be involved? At what level?
- Who needs to update this site? How often?
- How often can we afford to overhaul this site?
- How much money do we have to spend? How much time?
In other words, what will this cost us? A question that opens the door for much larger debate of, do we really need to incur this cost in the first place? What makes us think we need a redesign?
And that gets us to the question that our own Jeffrey Eisenberg tackled within his free report 7 Big Questions of Highly Effective Online Marketing. For starters he suggests that people interested in redoing their site should ask the big questions first:
- Do we need a redesign, or can we work with what we have?
- Exactly how would a redesigned site better serve our visitors?
- If the best-converting sites are often boring in their design, are we willing to design our site with that in mind? [in other words, do we have the intellectual integrity to separate out an notional "want" for a prettier/slicker website from a real business need]
- Will we incorporate a scientific testing methodology into our redesign so we can optimize user interactions based on predictions of how our different audience segments will engage with the site? [in other words, are we really serious about redesigning to improve performance? Serious enough to bake accountability into the very fabric of the redesigned site?]
And if you’re not sure if you need a redesign, perhaps it’s best to take a cold hard look at your current Website in order to:
- Isolate what isn’t working and what is
- Determine whether you need to re-conceive your site because too many elements bog down the original design
On Target as a Precursor and Follow-up to a Website Redo
While Future Now has been involved in hundreds of successful Website redesigns and renovations, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg clearly saw that there were far more sites out there in need of optimization and improvement than full scale redesigns.
And far more Website owners who couldn’t answer the majority of the questions posed in Seth’s post and Jeffrey’s report.
That’s how OnTarget was born.
OnTarget allows Website owners to gain insight into what is and isn’t working with their current site, and provides them with prioritized recommendations to optimize the site, fix the leaks, etc. Think of it as an incremental redesign based on measurable results.
With OnTarget it is only when major persuasive and usability obstacles can’t be surmounted without major retooling, re-skinning, etc. that a site redesign is contemplated. And in those cases, the business owners are able to answer those critical questions posed by Seth and Jeffrey.
This often means walking away from big redesign projects. But it always means providing the client with the wisest and best use of his online resources.
[Editors Note:Â The author of this article is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]
About the author
Jeff is a Persuasion Architect, Web copywriter, blogger, and instructor of FutureNow's Persuasive Online Copywriting workshop. Follow Jeff Sexton on twitter
More articles from Jeff Sexton
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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September 18th, 2009
12:14 pm
Having just completed a major redesign, I can certainly see the importance of Seth’s points, as well as the additional suggestions you make. A large redesign project can encompass so many facets of your business that it’s often difficult to make sure you capture them all. Is it a functional update? Look and feel change? Each type of update has its own challenges.
September 18th, 2009
12:26 pm
I am building a whole new website from the ground up on a new domain. I plan to use some of the advise I have gotten and learned along the way.
September 18th, 2009
2:02 pm
To me the primary value of Seth’s list is that it focuses on site visitors, a tough things for many site publishers to consistently wrap their brains around. The operational issues are also crucial so key decisions are driven by hard realities of resources and outcomes. Publishers (as opposed to marketers) looking at site redesign have found my article on website requirements docs (http://bit.ly/k8cGQ) helpful as well.
September 18th, 2009
2:39 pm
Hi,
that’s a really good article which well should be followed when redeigning a website. Currently I’m only some minor steps away from redesigning two websites, but I’m a little afraid to do so – I don’t know, but I think it’s normal!?
I just bookmarked your site to have a guiding hand if I start.
September 18th, 2009
4:47 pm
That’s a solid list of questions you created, Mitch. Nice job and thanks for sharing.
- Jeff
September 18th, 2009
7:17 pm
Fantastic post.
Questions posed will keep any serious online marketer busy for weeks.
Suggestion: Copy these questions down in a notebook and answer them as honestly as you can although you think you don’t have sensible answers.
Refine the answers over the coming days.
September 19th, 2009
1:52 am
This a great list, not just for a redesign but a design itself. It makes me want to redesign a couple of my sites.
September 19th, 2009
3:00 am
This has been a fantastic eye-opener to a subject that I am just learning about properly for the first time. As a business start up project, I have purposely focused on content and realise now that what is needed is optimization and improvement rather than a than full scale redesign.
Thank you so much for the starter for 10.
September 19th, 2009
9:15 am
Jozefa,
Glad you liked the post. When reorganizing, pay attention not only to how you categorize the content, but also to how you link the content together through embedded hyperlinks. Those embedded links can help tie the content together in a more conversational and associative manner than you can usually get away with when sorting content by category or hierarchy.
- Jeff
September 19th, 2009
11:37 am
Awesome post! the questions were really helpful! I am definitely going to use these advise to improve my site.
Alex,
Vom Bullenfeld German Rottweiler puppies
September 19th, 2009
8:10 pm
Great list of questions. I think that it seems like common sense but we all need it layed out. Thank you so much for sharing.
September 20th, 2009
12:24 am
#
Great list of questions. I think that it seems like common sense but we all need it layed out. Thank you so much for sharing.
http://www.methoo.com
September 20th, 2009
6:15 am
LOL, I’m busy re-doing a client’s website but after reading your post and thinking about the questions you listed… Looks like I’ll have to restart again!
Thank you for this valuable information.
Johan Roode
September 20th, 2009
4:58 pm
[...] “redesign” konusundaki yazılarıma, hem de az önce tesadüfen karşıma çıkan bir iki Seth Godin yazısına göz atacağım. Ama asıl önemli olan siz ziyaretçilerin yorumları, [...]
September 21st, 2009
10:50 am
And here is The Right Answer: Just Do Website Engineering (see here about it: http://www.gorelkin.blogspot.com/)
September 21st, 2009
12:50 pm
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September 22nd, 2009
5:48 am
[...] Source:Redesign? Ask The Right Questions! Share and Enjoy: [...]
September 22nd, 2009
2:38 pm
This is all so true but it is lack of knowledge that makes people decide to redesign their website. I have people saying that they don’t have many visitors so they think they need to redesign. They just don’t understand that a redesign might not necessarily improve their rankings, and that rankings can be improved on their old site with some SEO.
September 22nd, 2009
9:16 pm
Other questions to ask: Do you have data available to answer these questions, such as through analytics, surveys, interviews with customers and listening labs? If not, do you have the resources to obtain this information and to analyze it?
September 22nd, 2009
10:34 pm
[...] your church website? Seth Godin offers a series of questions to ask before you get started. And Future Now expands on those questions, even covering whether you even need a redesign at [...]
September 23rd, 2009
10:39 am
[...] there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good thoughts from the [...]
September 23rd, 2009
10:54 am
[...] there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good [...]
September 23rd, 2009
7:39 pm
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September 23rd, 2009
7:39 pm
So True. As a former Web Manager I got our B2B site among the top 10 b2B sites using continuous improvement. After moving on the “next guy” continuously did nothing for 2 years and is now looking for 1 million to “redesign” the site.
I like you think Redesigns are usually not needed and recognize most of them being driven by marketers who don’t know how much easier and cheaper over the long run to make positive incremental changes.
September 24th, 2009
11:53 am
The post by rob above is a good example of people not wanting to read your shit…
September 27th, 2009
4:34 am
Hi great content mate. It is very NLP like. At last an internet marketing company that understand buying behaviour.
September 27th, 2009
2:48 pm
Surely the evaluation of every action on any website should be montiored using any analytics package-as feedback from any change you make to any marketing medium should be monitored for effectiveness. Some things may be good and some not so good-from this data you can really refine the way a site operates to its users.
October 2nd, 2009
1:21 am
I agree that your website should fit your target audience. Not only that but you should be engaging with your audience.
October 2nd, 2009
6:28 am
Very interesting article
October 2nd, 2009
8:16 am
nice, best of luck
October 5th, 2009
9:17 am
For sure, redesigning a website is an uneasy job !
I made it twice for the moment on my “<a href="http://www.tout-le-japon.com/"blog sur le Japon” and you’d better make de kind of “to-do list” in order to make everything correctly.
So, your article will help many webmaster for sure !
October 5th, 2009
9:18 am
For sure, redesigning a website is an uneasy job !
I made it twice for the moment on my “blog sur le Japon” and you’d better make de kind of “to-do list” in order to make everything correctly.
So, your article will help many webmaster for sure !
October 9th, 2009
2:59 am
Great post. All excellent points. We’ve recently redesigned our website so I totally appreciate the challenges involved. We’re open to any feedback!
October 13th, 2009
4:15 am
i like what you have posted above.
Things are changing everday.In order to be competitive,redesighing is inevitabl.
And an effective way to redesign is asking the right questions.
October 13th, 2009
9:15 am
Thanks for the list, I’ll definitely put this in to consideration when creating my sites.
October 18th, 2009
3:10 pm
I have a problem with number 2 – willing to compromise the questions from number 1 for a better ranking. Search Engines will not buy your product or services. Being on the first page of a search engine is obviously a huge benefit, but only if you are targeting the right people.
October 18th, 2009
8:33 pm
Coulee,
I fully agree with you that trading persuasion for Search Engine Rankings typically represents a bad trade-off. Posing the question isn’t advocating for the trade-off; posing the question merely forces a conscious decision about the matter.
- Jeff
October 20th, 2009
3:25 pm
Seth’s “Big Red Fez” is one of the simplest books he’s ever written, and one of the easiest to read – and yet it deals with simple fundamentals that a lot of companies still have problems with! Get with that banana!
October 20th, 2009
8:06 pm
A quite throughout outlining of things to consider when redesigning your website.
I personally think that the main factor is to correctly determine and target your niche.
October 22nd, 2009
7:04 am
But, we have Good Solar Resources. ,
October 23rd, 2009
6:09 am
There is no hidden agenda or implications to it. ,
October 25th, 2009
2:35 pm
Jeff your question list help me impress my customer.
October 27th, 2009
6:48 am
I’m glad you raise some operational questions, since it seems that most redesign discussions just concern *what* should change, and not *how* to make it happen. The “how” can be complicated for large sites in particular, so for example creating a compelling vision to get everyone on board will be important for large sites (see http://ow.ly/wyX8).
October 29th, 2009
3:23 pm
Great article. These questions are THE starting point for a good redesign. Thanks for sharing!
November 5th, 2009
1:08 pm
More expert info from the design guru himself
November 6th, 2009
12:15 pm
Thanks for the list, i will use that methıds before create a new website.
November 8th, 2009
5:08 pm
Useful lists, especially number three. -Bryan
November 9th, 2009
6:37 pm
I asked the wrong questions and paid the price!
November 14th, 2009
5:27 am
Thanks for this guide!