Many companies build and/or redesign their website every few years. This can be for a variety of reasons: the corporate identity is being updated, the backend is outdated or the website is no longer up to date. But the closer you get to going live with the redesign, the more people start wondering what the effect of the new website will be. Suppose; the new design does not bring what was expected after all. Can you then reverse it or do you have to push through? And how can you be sure if the new design will do better or worse?

At Online Dialogue, we regularly get questions about implementing a website redesign. There are a number of things to pay close attention to here. 

Methods to validate a redesign

Validating a redesign is not as easy as it seems. Ideally, you want to test the new website against the old website and your visitors random distribute to either website. 

You can choose several options here. For example, you can start by referring your visitors to the new website through a pop-up or link on the old website. This will ensure that especially the most motivated visitors will view and use your new website, so expect a bias in behavior. But this is a good method to already gain insights and bugs tracking. 

You can also choose a random distribution between the old website and the new website. You then choose the same setup as an A/B test, only now you test the entire new website versus the old one. You can do this by running a split url test set up in your test tool. With a spilt url test, you distribute traffic across different urls. Or you divide the traffic by server-side divide your visitors between the old and new websites. Our experience with server-side testing are the most positive so far.

Important before you begin

Provide a clear goal

Have a clear goal in mind with the redesign. Decide in advance which KPIs you will monitor and set up scenarios with concrete action items. Make sure you know what to do if you see a drop in revenue from 10%, for example. Or what to do if customer service can no longer handle the number of inquiries. 

Listen to your visitors

Both before and during the redesign, it is important to keep listening to your visitors. Combined with quantitative data, this gives a good picture of how the website is working. In this way, you can quickly find out the possible causes of a component not working properly. You can do this, for example, by means of a user test, interviews with customers or listening in on customer service.  

Cooperation between departments

The implementation of a redesign stands or falls with good communication between different departments. Important is a clear planning and clear communication of this. Make sure everyone is aware of the progress on a daily basis. The customer service and social media departments can expect more questions, and they must be able to handle them well.

By keeping good communication between the different departments, you can switch quickly and, where necessary, already solve problems or ambiguities. It is also useful to have short lines of communication between development, data and design. If something goes wrong, it is quickly resolved. Also be careful not to lean too much on the opinions of employees. Try to start this process as impartially as possible and decide as much as possible on the basis of the available data.

Technical challenges in a redesign

Skewed distribution

Always check that there is a 50/50 split when you go live. Wondering how to do this? Here you will find more information about it. We often see a skewed distribution in these types of larger tests. The visitors are not random distributed because, for example, a marketing channel refers only to the old website. As a result, the distribution is no longer random and the comparison becomes difficult. If this is the case, do additional analysis to see where this goes wrong and how to fix it. For example, look at different browsers and different marketing channels. 

Flicker effect 

A second problem is the flicker effect. By this we mean that just before you are redirected to the new website, you see the old one for a moment. This disturbs the customer's experience and can affect the results. Again, one solution is to choose a different method of distribution. With a server-side solution, for example, you won't suffer from this. 

Data quality

Often we see correct analytics implementation seen as less important. A redesign is a great time to take a hard look at your current analytics setup. Make sure the new website is measured at least as well as the current website. 

Are measurements now being taken of what you want to measure? Are there measurements that are no longer needed or just measurements that you have always wanted? In doing so, make sure you can make a good comparison between the two analytics properties. You can also choose to have a roll-up account where you merge data from both websites. Or you choose to create the same property preserve and sends data from both platforms to the same property. 

Marketing channels

You won't be the first to forget to pay attention to organic search engine value. Make sure an SEO specialist is involved from start to finish so that duplicate content is handled appropriately. Your email marketing and advertisements will also need to be migrated to the new url structure. So here too, coordination between different departments is very important. 

Still in doubt or have questions? Get in touch with us and we can advise you what is the best step for your situation!