7 Easy Ways to Revamp Your Business Website Without a Full Redesign

Small tweaks. Big splash. You don’t need to completely redesign your website to get some easy wins.

At Coalesce, we are in the business of building cool things (including websites) for other people. But we secure a lot of that business through our own website. And I’m going to bet there’s a big chance your company operates the very same way.

Maintaining your website while you’re also chasing and tackling client work isn’t always easy. Not everyone has a team of developers and designers on standby for internal projects.

Plus, a full redesign takes an army.

And that army usually has too many cooks in the kitchen. (And yes, on paper an army of cooks sounds appetizing, but in reality, everything tastes terrible.) So we’re not doing a redesign. The first hack? Nix the stressy labels. Call it a “revamp.” Or “just a couple updates.” Or one new page (hey, it’s a start). Resetting expectations helps make the process more attainable.

First, eyeball the low-hanging fruit and take a quick measure of your starting line. (A redesign would demand a content or visual design audit, but this is a revamp, remember?) Think of it as a quick scan.

Channel a relaxed Marie Kondo moment, except add data. Look and see where users are clicking and visiting. Toss in some visitor survey feedback. Finally, combine those insights with best practices and your own gut instinct for what feels good for your company in this moment. At the end of the day, you still want a unique website that captures your essence, not a click-baity black hole of Google-approved boredom.

At the end of the day, you still want a unique website that captures your essence, not a click-baity black hole of Google-approved boredom.

What are the things you can do right now that are:
a) attainable in a few weeks,
b) move your business forward and
c) feel good to publish?

Still need inspiration? Here are six simple suggestions that you can steal for your revamp. Happy updating.

1. Reorganize your content.

Look at your blog posts, case studies, or portfolio work and see if there’s a new fresh way to add in categories, expand on taxonomy, or further show your expertise. This makes your work more scannable to visitors and shows off your capabilities in a familiar and graphic way.

2. Heighten imagery.

Even if it’s just one or two images, upping the visuals is usually a pretty economical investment. Try adding some graphic imagery to your homepage, about page, portfolio, or inside some of your more wordy case studies.

3. Re-evaluate your company culture.

No culture section? Add one. Ours is in the form of three operating philosophies that help communicate how and why we choose specific work. It’s an easy piece of content to align your team and showcase your style.

4. Hide the CAPTCHA.

Typically CAPTCHA is used to make sure dynamic portions of a website — like contact forms or signup forms to download white papers — are being accessed by an actual human. But while you might even notice it’s on your site, your customers definitely do. Traditional CAPTCHA is cumbersome, often frustrating, and time consuming.

Ease that burden by making your CAPTCHA invisible. It just takes a simple upgrade to reCAPTCHA v3 or reCAPTCHA v2 (Invisible reCAPTCHA badge), which should be a light lift for your developers. If your site is built on Wordpress, you have this Invisible reCaptcha plugin as an integration option as well.

(Also, did you know the acronym CAPTCHA stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart?” Yay, trivia.)

5. Drop in a pandemic update.

You might already have a disclaimer about how Covid-19 has affected your work, office hours, or whereabouts. But your customers might want to know more — like where your team is working, how often they can get a hold of you, or even how you’re holding up. Make sure your subsidiary sites (especially if you hosted regular events) have new language as well.

6. Improve page speed score.

It’s never a bad idea to work on speeding up your website, especially since it’s a ranking factor for Google. Google’s Page Speed Insights is a good place to start.

While every site is different, we recommend targeting the biggest wins that require the least amount of effort. Minifying, merging, and deferring the load of as many CSS and JS assets as possible is usually a good place to start. If your website is built on Wordpress, using a plugin such as WP Rocket or Autoptimize can be a quick way to get that score up. (If you’re curious about this or it feels like we’re speaking a foriegn language, drop us a line: hello@coalesce.nyc.)

7. Craft a catch-all container.

There are always side hustles or mini projects that your team works on that don’t get the attention they deserves. Instead of designing out an entire page or case study for those forgotten children, build a single place to house these explanations, images, or links so you can quickly add them on your site without developing an entire new page.

Need more website advice? Looking to do an actual redesign? We’re your people. Reach out: hello@coalesce.nyc