How to Prepare Your Content for a Website Redesign

As a business owner, you’ve decided it’s time for a website redesign – congratulations! Whether your current website feels outdated, isn’t converting visitors into customers, or simply doesn’t reflect your brand anymore, a redesign can breathe new life into your online presence. However, a successful redesign isn’t just about aesthetics and functionality; it’s also about ensuring that your content is ready to shine on your new website.

Content is the backbone of your website – it informs, engages, and converts visitors. Without thoughtful preparation, your redesign efforts may fall flat, leaving your audience confused or unimpressed.

In this blog post, I guide you through the process of how to prepare your content for a website redesign, ensuring that it not only fits seamlessly into your new design but also resonates with your audience and drives results.

1. Evaluate Your Existing Content

Before creating new content, it’s essential to take stock of what you already have. This step is crucial for identifying what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be refreshed or replaced.

Conduct a Content Audit

A content audit is a systematic review of all the content on your current website. It helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your content and provides a clear picture of what needs to be updated, repurposed, or discarded. Here’s how you can conduct a content audit:

• Inventory Your Content: Start by listing all the pages, blog posts, and multimedia content on your website. Tools like Screaming Frog or Google Analytics can help automate this process.
• Analyze Performance: Review the performance of each piece of content. Metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates can indicate how well each piece resonates with your audience.
• Assess Quality: Evaluate the quality of your content. Is it still relevant? Does it align with your brand voice? Are there any outdated or inaccurate pieces?
• Identify Gaps: Look for content gaps—topics that your audience is interested in that you haven’t covered yet. This could be an opportunity to create new content that addresses those needs.

Decide What to Keep, Update, or Remove

After your audit, categorize your content into three groups:

• Keep: Content that is still relevant, well-performing, and aligns with your brand can be migrated to your new website with minimal changes.
• Update: Content that is outdated, poorly performing, or no longer aligns with your brand may need to be refreshed. This could involve updating statistics, improving SEO, or rewriting sections to match your current tone of voice.
• Remove: Content that is no longer relevant or redundant should be removed. However, be cautious with this—if a piece of content still drives significant traffic or has high SEO value, consider updating it instead.

2. Define Your Content Strategy

Once you’ve evaluated your existing content, it’s time to define your content strategy for the future. A clear content strategy ensures that your new website not only looks good but also delivers the right message to the right audience.

Understand Your Audience

To create content that resonates, you need a deep understanding of your target audience. Consider the following questions:

• Who is your target audience? Define your ideal customers in terms of demographics, interests, and pain points.
• What are their needs and goals? Understand what your audience is looking for when they visit your website. Are they seeking information, solutions to problems, or products and services?
• How do they consume content? Determine the types of content your audience prefers, whether it’s blog posts, videos, infographics, or case studies.

Set Content Goals

What do you want your content to achieve? Your goals might include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, educating your audience, or driving sales. Defining clear goals will guide your content creation process and help measure the success of your efforts.

Develop a Content Plan

With your audience and goals in mind, create a content plan that outlines what content you will create, when you will publish it, and how it will be promoted. This plan should include:

• Content Topics: Brainstorm topics that align with your audience’s needs and your business goals.
• Content Formats: Decide on the formats that will best convey your message (e.g., blogs, videos, eBooks).
• Content Calendar: Schedule your content creation and publication to ensure a steady flow of fresh material on your new website.

3. Optimize Content for SEO and User Experience

As you prepare content for your redesigned website, optimizing for search engines and user experience is key. Great content that no one can find or that is difficult to read will not do you any favours.

Keyword Research and Implementation

Keyword research is essential for ensuring that your content is discoverable through search engines. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to identify keywords that are relevant to your business and have a good balance of search volume and competition.

• Incorporate Keywords Naturally: Once you have your keywords, incorporate them naturally into your content. Avoid keyword stuffing, which can harm your SEO efforts and make your content less readable.
• Optimize Meta Descriptions and Titles: Ensure that each page on your website has a unique meta title and description that includes your primary keywords. These elements not only improve SEO but also influence click-through rates.

Improve Readability and Accessibility

Your content should be easy to read and accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Here are some tips to enhance readability and accessibility:

• Use Short Paragraphs and Sentences: Break up your text into shorter paragraphs and sentences to make it more digestible.
• Include Headings and Subheadings: Use clear headings and subheadings to organize your content and make it easier for users to scan.
• Add Alt Text to Images: Ensure that all images have descriptive alt text, which helps with SEO and makes your content accessible to visually impaired users.
• Optimize for Mobile: With more people accessing websites from mobile devices, it’s crucial that your content is mobile-friendly. Use responsive design and test your content on different devices to ensure it looks and functions well.

4. Prepare for Migration and Testing

As your content is updated and optimized, the final step is to prepare for migration to your new website and conduct thorough testing to ensure everything works as expected.

Content Migration

Content migration involves transferring your content from your old website to the new one. This process can be complex, especially if you have a lot of content or are switching to a new content management system (CMS). Here’s how to ensure a smooth migration:

• Back Up Your Existing Content: Before migration, back up all your content to prevent data loss.
• Map URLs: Create a URL mapping document that lists your old URLs and their corresponding new URLs. This is crucial for maintaining SEO rankings and ensuring that users are redirected to the correct pages.
• Test Migrated Content: After migration, thoroughly test your content to ensure it has been transferred correctly. Check for broken links, missing images, and formatting issues.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

User acceptance testing involves having real users test your website before it goes live. This step ensures that your content is not only accurate but also user-friendly. Here are some areas to focus on during UAT:

• Navigation: Ensure that users can easily navigate through your website and find the content they’re looking for.
• Functionality: Test all interactive elements (e.g., forms, buttons) to ensure they work correctly.
• Content Display: Check that content displays correctly on different devices and browsers.

Wrapping Up

Preparing your content for a website redesign is a critical step in ensuring the success of your new site. By evaluating your existing content, defining a clear content strategy, optimizing for SEO and user experience, and carefully migrating and testing your content, you can create a website that not only looks great but also delivers real value to your audience.

Remember, your website is more than just a digital storefront—it’s a powerful tool for connecting with your audience and driving business results. Taking the time to prepare your content properly will pay off in the long run, helping you achieve your goals and make the most of your new website.

Do you have any questions or tips on how to prepare your content for a website redesign? We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below and join the conversation.