Association Website Redesign: 7 Steps to Prepare for a Redesign

7 Strategic Steps for Associations and Non-Profits to Prepare for a Website Redesign

Thinking about your association website redesign? Consider that a website is more than just a digital presence; it’s a dynamic interface between your brand and your audience.

In today’s digital landscape, a well-designed website is crucial for associations and non-profits, serving as a cornerstone of their online identity and engagement. This guide explores seven strategic steps to prepare effectively for a website redesign, ensuring your digital transformation aligns with your mission and resonates with your audience.

1. Content Health Assessment

According to a study by HubSpot, updating and repurposing old blog posts with new content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%.

Hubsport

A content inventory is fundamental in identifying outdated or irrelevant content. This process ensures that the redesign focuses on current, valuable content, eliminating redundancies and aligning with your mission and goals. It also allows for a strategic view of your content architecture, helping to identify gaps in information and opportunities for new content development. User Experience (UX) designers often advocate for “Content-First Design” leading to better design outcomes.

For example, try using Google Search Console to locate content that is getting lots of impressions but no clicks. Then using Detailed.com’s Chrome extension review your content, then Google the top results. Review those pages and compare the results in Detailed. Is your content the best?

Why: To ensure relevance and accuracy in your redesign.
How: Review each page for sites under 500 pages, or use tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console for larger sites.
Resources: Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Moz’s Guide to How to do a content audit, Optimizely’s Content Marketing Tools, Google Search Console

2. Defining Your Core User: Audience Understanding

Knowing the user, and understanding their needs and behaviors, is the key to any successful design project.

Don Norman – Founder, Norman Nielsen Group

Understanding your audience shapes the redesign to be user-centric. This step ensures the new design resonates with your audience, enhancing user experience and engagement. Knowing the audience’s demographics, interests, and online behaviors allows you to tailor the design, content, and functionality to their preferences. We always recommend spending time with your audiences both internal and external to get to the root of usability challenges, points of friction, and overlapping digital tools. Audience understanding via interviews, and usability studies helps guide priorities too. User sentiment is often eye-opening for decision-makers.

Why: To ensure the redesign meets audience expectations and needs.
How: Analyze existing audience data from various channels.
Resources: Google Analytics, and Hootsuite for social media insights.

3. Association Website Redesign: Addressing Website Challenges

73% of companies identify website performance as a significant challenge impacting user satisfaction and engagement.

A survey by GoodFirms

Identifying key issues helps focus the redesign on solving real problems. This understanding allows for a targeted approach, ensuring the new design addresses these challenges effectively. One of the more common challenges of digital transformation is setting priorities. In other words “shopping while hungry” can lead to feature request bloat. Seeking clarity early on what matters and cutting through the “nice to haves” leads to better products down the road. We’ll often guide clients through exercises like “Bang for Your Buck” to help locate the highest-impact features that address usability issues.

Why: To prioritize redesign efforts for maximum impact.
How: Conduct interviews with team members engaged with your website.
Resources: User Interview Guides, DigitalGov’s Web Improvement Process.

4. Analytics Review

Analytics-driven design changes resulted in a 30% increase in conversions for an e-commerce site.

Kissmetrics

Analytics review provides a clear picture of current site performance. This informs which areas of the site are effective and which need improvement, guiding the redesign process strategically. Starting with data/analytics early in the redesign project helps to promote the idea of “Data-Driven” from the start of the project. Data is often a key tool for prioritizing features. For example, if your data shows that very few members are using certain features you can dig deeper and investigate if the reason is usability, feature discovery (do they know about the feature), or relevance (members know the feature exists but it is not relevant).

Why: To guide the redesign with data-driven insights.
How: Review key website metrics.
Resources: Google Analytics, Kissmetrics Blog on Website Analytics.

5. Competitive Analysis

Understanding what competitors do well provides a benchmark for your redesign. This comparison helps in identifying opportunities to differentiate your site and improve upon industry norms. Keep in mind you are competing for attention in a very crowded digital space.

Why: To inform your strategy with industry standards.
How: Evaluate competitors on various aspects.
Resources: SEMrush, Detailed.com Chrome Extension.

6. Stakeholder Engagement – Managing an Association Website Redesign

Engaging stakeholders effectively ensures that the redesign aligns with organizational goals. It helps in clarifying expectations and responsibilities and facilitating smooth decision-making processes. We have a more extensive guide to stakeholder management.

Why: To ensure alignment and project success.
How: Establish clear roles using a RACI matrix.
Resources: PMI Resources, RACI matrix templates.

Association Website Redesign

By comprehensively addressing each of these areas, your website redesign will not only refresh the site’s appearance but also significantly enhance its functionality, relevance, and alignment with your strategic objectives.