Integrating Digital Marketing into Website Redesign: A Strategic Guide

In today's digital landscape, your website serves as more than just an online billboard – it's a pivotal component of your marketing and sales strategy. The problem is that too many organizations fail to consider their digital marketing needs when it’s time to update their own digital presence. 

A website redesign is a prime opportunity to integrate digital marketing elements that drive growth and enhance prospect and customer engagement. Even though digital has been a marketing mainstay for more than 20 years, many companies still don’t consider that websites and marketing are inherently linked. Disregarding this connection can neuter the effectiveness of a redesign and limit your marketing in the future. 

Simply put, incorporating digital marketing into your website redesign is essential. In this article, we break down how each aspect of a website redesign contributes to your business goals and sales.

Assess Your Current Website and Marketing

Before you begin a redesign, take some time to review your current website. You can’t address weaknesses and build upon strengths until you understand how your current website performs. Even if you think you have a rough idea of this performance, take a moment to evaluate metrics like:

• Site speed
• Engagement rates
• Conversion rates 

For instance, a low engagement rate may indicate that visitors can’t find what they're looking for, leading to lost sales opportunities.  Having this information can allow you to address these issues during a redesign, allowing you to create a more efficient sales funnel that guides users toward making a purchase or inquiry.

User Experience (UX) is another key element of any website redesign. 88% of online customers won’t return to a website after a bad user experience, so the goal here is to walk away with a website that is more engaging and user-friendly. Gathering user feedback uncovers pain points in navigation and usability that can frustrate potential customers, causing them to leave before completing a desired action. Enhancing UX ensures visitors have a seamless experience, increasing the likelihood of conversions and repeat visits.

Define Clear Business Objectives

A website redesign should be driven by specific business goals to ensure alignment with your overall strategy. Establishing clear objectives for marketing – such as increasing lead generation by 20% or boosting online sales by 30% – provides direction for the redesign process. These goals inform design decisions, content creation, and functionality, ensuring every aspect of the site contributes to achieving measurable outcomes.

Understanding your ideal customers allows you to tailor the website's design and content to their preferences and behaviors to achieve these goals. Marketing research like personas and engagement rates allows businesses to build a site that resonates with its audience because it’s based around their desires and actions. In turn, that site fosters stronger connections, encourages engagement, and ultimately, drives sales growth.

Consider the Value of SEO 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for increasing your website's visibility and attracting organic traffic. Ensuring quick load times, mobile responsiveness, and proper URL structures enhances user experience and search engine performance. A technically sound website is favored by search engines and AI, improving your site's ranking and accessibility to users.

Once you know this, it should be no surprise that SEO should be ingrained into the redesign process. Factors such as relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and optimized headings are still very important for search engine rankings and should all be a factor when rebuilding a website. Through both technical and content-based SEO, higher visibility leads to increased traffic and more leads and sales.

Develop a Content Strategy Early

More than 80% of marketers actively use content marketing, and for good reason – compelling content attracts and engages visitors, positioning your brand as an authority and driving conversions. Informative and relevant content addresses the needs and interests of your audience, building trust and encouraging engagement. A few examples include:

• Site pages that quickly and clearly explain the features and benefits of your products or services, and turn users into leads.
• Blog posts that solve common problems can attract potential customers seeking solutions, leading them to consider your products or services.
• Case studies that highlight your solutions and showcase a more detailed level of expertise.
• Guides and whitepapers that provide in-depth information to potential customers looking for more than surface level details.

While writing is the most important element for website content, that content needs a place to live. Selecting the right Content Management System (CMS) is vital, as an intuitive CMS enables your team to efficiently update and manage content that is aligned with marketing campaigns. A flexible CMS supports scalability and quick adaptations to market trends, ensuring your content strategy remains effective.

Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing

Connecting your website with social media and email marketing efforts amplifies your reach and nurtures customer relationships. It’s easy to bury your social icons in the footer of your website but  doing that limits the potential for organic sharing and building a social following. There are a few ways that you can integrate social media into your redesign:

• Incorporate social sharing buttons so that visitors can distribute your content across their networks and increase exposure traffic, and potential sales opportunities.
• Embed sign-up forms for newsletters and email automations within your website to collect visitor information for email marketing campaigns that drive conversions and foster customer loyalty.
• Add user-generated content like photos and reviews to relevant pages to build trust and social proof for discerning users.

Continue to Monitor Analytics

You wouldn’t add an extension onto your house without knowing what you’re working with, so why would you do a redesign without reviewing how your current site is performing? Ongoing analysis of website performance informs data-driven decisions, ensuring continuous improvement and alignment with business goals. 

Start by implementing analytics tools to provide insights into user behavior, traffic sources, and conversion metrics. This data is essential for assessing the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategies and identifying areas for enhancement. This process also allows you to compare website performance and see how changes occurred from the old to the new website. 

Embrace Digital Marketing for a More Successful Redesign

Integrating digital marketing into your website redesign is not merely an option; it's a strategic necessity for businesses aiming to thrive. By focusing on performance analysis, clear objectives, incorporating marketing functionality, and continuous monitoring, you create a website that serves as a powerful tool for marketing and sales growth.

At Aztek, we specialize in providing practical solutions that lead to visually appealing websites built for exceptional performance and future marketing success. Need help building your next website or solving marketing challenges? Let’s talk about how we can support your business.