Website redesigning can be a scary thought for all the teams in your company, from IT and design to sales and even marketing, everyone has to be on their toes in regards to their responsibilities when expecting a complete overhaul when your website’s design is concerned. Since everyone contributes, you won’t find any missing element to work on towards the final launch, but surprise surprise! There is.
Most companies often forget to include this one component during a website redesign and most times, they’ve realized it after they’re finalized with their product, leaving them no gap to work or tailor the website further. Even though this vital component isn’t a product of design or of shifting pixels from one edge to another and neither is it a major change that can potentially cost you immense shortcomings, it’s sort of an important one to consider when redesigning your website in 2016.
Why Analytics?
Analytics are often paused until the website is fancy, shiny and completely finished. And I understand why one would not consider keeping the analytics on during redesigning, instead, keep the old website layout on or in maintenance mode right until the new website layout is patched on. But having analytics on during a complete website redesign can prove to be extremely beneficial as your page viewers can unintentionally direct you to certain navigation errors, and other user experience issues that you would have had to amend later on when the entire website is polished and updated. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if some of your users could do the live testing of your website during the redesigning process so you save time and ultimately give your users exactly what they are in dire need of?
Users can be of great help to understand how a website is understood and read online by thousands and tapping into such a source can take a great deal off of your shoulders in terms of design and innovation because you already know what’s going to work for your website, even if it’s unconventional in user experience. Even though you’re a creative designer with a knack for portraying strict originality in design, you have the opportunity to allow your users to help you decide which element needs more tailoring than the rest. This way, you won’t end up spending hours on a specific element such as the navigation menu thinking that it doesn’t fit well, when in fact, if you’d only kept your analytics on during the process to realize that it wasn’t the navigation menu that was causing the confusion for users, but it was some other noticeable element altogether. As passionate designers, you learn from what you do and from what you don’t do only to do it the second time around, so turning the analytics switch on during redesigning will allow you to grow and accomplish certain ifs and buts instantly.
If you’re skeptical to put on an incomplete presentation in front of your users, you can conduct split testing between old and new to learn what’s working and what’s not. The two most important metrics to measure with your analytics on is User Engagement and Conversion Rate; almost all other measures are positioned under either one of these two metrics. With the former one, you understand how your users interact with your website while with the latter one you determine the successful elements that ultimately direct a user to complete a goal- whether it’s purchasing a new product, signing up for the newsletter or downloading an e-book. If the goal is met, you know which spots of your new website have accomplished that goal for you.
[bctt tweet=”As passionate designers, you learn from what you do and what you don’t do.” username=”crazecommerce”]
Sometimes, with a few website designs, users may initially get a bit clueless and act randomly upon browsing, but with time, they learn the dynamics and can easily navigate the website. But with analytics, you can set certainly unthinkable standards for your website as you’re aware of specific demographics of your users and what they’re looking for in terms of prices, interests, offers, etc. The upshot is that keeping your analytics on can lead to some unusual constructions and modifications that you wouldn’t have been able to predict otherwise. Making such drastic changes can possibly heighten your conversion rate and get more in front of many responsive users over time.
The secret is to never stop experimenting, even when website reconstruction is concerned, and you’ll be amazed at how your users interact with your product.
[bctt tweet=”The secret is to never stop experimenting.” username=”crazecommerce”]