Are you unhappy with your WordPress website’s design due to its underperformance and subpar optimization? If so, you’ve landed on the right post.
If your website’s Core Web Vitals are poor, it’s not mobile responsive, has a high bounce rate, pages load slowly, and traffic is dropping significantly, it’s time for a renovation.
But you might be wondering, how? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered and are here to help in this blog. So, read till the end to learn how to redesign a WordPress website with ease.
When you should consider redesigning a WordPress Website?
Redesigning a website is not an easy task and requires a lot of time and effort. Therefore, you cannot simply redesign a WordPress website because you are bored; instead, consider redesigning only when:
Don’t redesign just because you’re bored: Redesigning a website takes time, so it should only be done when it’s really necessary.
Traffic drop: If your site is losing visitors, it might mean your website no longer meets users’ needs, and a redesign could help.
First impressions: If your site looks outdated, it can give a bad impression of your brand or business.
Poor user experience: If visitors struggle to find important information, a redesign might be needed to improve navigation, like adding better menus or links.
Speed issues: If your site is slow even after trying to optimize it, the design might be too complicated, and you may need a more lightweight one.
Mobile problems: If your site doesn’t work well on mobile devices despite your efforts, the theme might be old, and a more mobile-friendly design could solve this.
Brand misalignment: If your website no longer represents your brand or what you offer, it’s time for a redesign.
Conversions: If your site isn’t converting visitors into customers or subscribers as it should, a redesign could help boost your business and online presence.
Steps to Redesigning a WordPress Website
Check out the steps that will help you to follow a straightforward and streamlined way to start redesigning a WordPress site.
Step 1: Gather the Website’s Performance data and analyze the Report
Why even collect data?
Even if you already know you’re losing traffic and conversions, you need data to confirm the issues. Plus, after the redesign, you can use this data to see if the changes are helping.
Setting benchmarks: Collecting data before the redesign gives you a starting point (benchmarks) to compare your site’s performance before and after the redesign. This helps you measure whether the redesign improved things.
Recommended tool: For this purpose, you can consider the MonsterInsights plugin, which connects Google Analytics to your WordPress site. It helps track important performance metrics directly in your dashboard.
What to measure:
Overall traffic: How many visitors come to your site? This shows if the redesign improves visibility.
Bounce rate: How many people leave after viewing only one page? A good redesign can keep visitors engaged.
Conversion rate: How many visitors complete a desired action (like buying something or signing up)? You can track if the redesign improves this.
Top pages: Which pages are the most popular? Protect these during the redesign to keep your audience happy.
Traffic sources: Where do visitors come from (search engines, social media, etc.)? Design your site to support these channels.
Session duration: How long do visitors stay on your site? A redesign might encourage them to stay longer.
Page views per session: How many pages does each visitor look at? A better design can improve navigation, making users explore more.
Mobile vs desktop traffic: Know if more visitors use mobile or desktop, and design your site to work well on those devices.
Easy access to data: With MonsterInsights, you can even use an AI tool to ask questions about your site’s performance, making it easier to get the information you need.
Step 2: Conduct a Complete WordPress Site Audit
Before making changes, you need to figure out what’s causing the performance issues you discovered earlier. This helps you decide what needs fixing and what’s already working well. For that purpose,
Conduct a website audit: A website audit helps you understand how users experience your current site. This will guide you in making smart redesign decisions.
Get user feedback: Ask your users directly about their experience on your site—what they like, dislike, or find confusing. The UserFeedback plugin lets you add surveys to your site so visitors can share their opinions. This gives you valuable insights straight from your audience.
Evaluate the user journey: Look at how visitors navigate your site before making a purchase or completing a form. If there are obstacles, you’ll know what to fix. The MonsterInsights User Journey addon helps track this journey, especially for eCommerce sites like WooCommerce.
Use tracking tools for leads: If your site focuses on generating leads (e.g., getting people to fill out forms), WPForms works well with the User Journey addon. It shows you where visitors came from and the steps they took before submitting a form.
Heatmaps for deeper insights: Heatmaps show where visitors click, scroll, or hover on your pages, giving you a visual understanding of how people use your site. Microsoft Clarity is recommended as a free tool that provides heatmaps and other helpful data.
Step 3: Decide whether to put your site live or under maintenance
When redesigning your WordPress site, you have to choose whether to keep the site running (online) or take it offline (maintenance mode).
This affects how visitors and search engines see your site during the redesign.
Things to think about:
How big is the redesign? Are you only changing a few things or completely redoing the whole site?
How long will it take? Is it a quick job that takes a few days, or something that will take weeks?
Can your site be offline? Can your business survive if your site isn’t working for a while?
How many visitors do you get? If lots of people visit your site, they might leave if it’s down.
Are you changing how the site works? Are you just making it look different, or are you moving things around too?
Is your site important for your business? If your site is important for sales or other tasks, keeping it online is more important.
Keep the site online if possible: It’s usually better to keep the site running while redesigning. If you keep it online, you can avoid problems with losing visitors or hurting your search engine rankings. To do this:
Use a staging site, which is a copy of your site where you can test changes without affecting the live site.
Or use a local site on your computer to work on the redesign privately.
Maintenance mode for quick redesigns: If the redesign is short and won’t hurt your business, you can take the site offline using maintenance mode. But be careful, because:
It can hurt your ranking on search engines.
You might need to set up special redirects so visitors know the site is down.
Helpful tools:
SeedProd helps put your site in maintenance mode and create a nice page telling visitors about the redesign. It can also help collect emails from visitors who want to know when the site is back.
SeedProd also sends a special signal to search engines, letting them know the site is only down temporarily, which can help with SEO.
Step 4: Choose a Redesigning method that suits you
Now comes the redesigning part. Choose the most suitable and easiest method that aligns best with your needs. We have three options:
Option 1: Change Your Current Theme
Good for: People who like their current design but want to make it look a bit fresher or add new features.
Pros:
You already know how to use your current setup.
It’s faster, easier, and cheaper.
Visitors will recognize your website.
Cons:
You can only make changes based on what your current theme allows.
If you want to make more changes but don’t know how to code, you can use these tools:
CSS Hero: Helps you change your website’s design without coding.
WPCode: This lets you safely add custom features without breaking your site.
Option 2: Pick a New Theme and Customize It
Good for: People who want a big design change or to use new, modern features.
Pros:
You start fresh with new designs and features.
It can make your website faster and better.
Cons:
You might need to learn how to use the new theme.
You have to make sure the new theme works with your current plugins.
To make it easier, you can use tools like SeedProd, which lets you build pages by dragging and dropping pieces without needing technical skills.
Option 3: Hire a Professional Designer
Good for: People who want a custom-made website but don’t have the time or skills to create it themselves.
Pros:
You get a unique design made just for you.
You don’t have to worry about designing or coding anything.
Cons:
It’s more expensive.
You have to wait for the designer to finish the work.
If you want a new website but don’t want to do it yourself, hiring a designer is a great choice. It costs more, but you’ll get a custom website and professional help.
Step 5: Create a Backup before making it live
It is one of the most crucial steps that you should never skip. Always remember to create a backup of your website before starting any edits and even after finishing them. This will help ensure a smooth process if anything goes wrong.
Why is this important?
Fix mistakes: If something goes wrong, you can bring your old site back.
User reaction: If people don’t like the new look, you can easily switch back.
Save important stuff: You won’t lose any content or settings.
Feel safe: You’ll feel better knowing you can recover your site if needed.
To do this, you can use a tool like Duplicator. It makes backing up your site easy, and you can save it on your computer or in the cloud (like Dropbox). If you need to restore your site, you just drag and drop the backup file.
Step 6: Launch your Website and Run again site Audit
After finalizing everything and when you feel that the redesign of the site is complete on your end, make it live and run a final audit test.
For this purpose, there are various free tools available, such as SpyFu, PageSpeed Insights, Ubersuggest, etc. However, if you have premium tools available, such as SEMrush or Ahrefs, they would be great and provide you with enough analytics and audit reports.
If the audit results turn out to be satisfactory, also check Microsoft Clarity for user behavior and experience.
Make sure visitors are not experiencing any issues while navigating and scrolling through your website.
Conclusion
This is not the end, Once you launch your website, your job as the website admin isn’t over. You need to do regular maintenance to ensure your site stays fast, secure from attacks, and free from errors.
Don’t Worry! We have multiple posts and knowledge bases for you regarding tips and tricks to Maintain a website healthy.
Need Help? If all this seems overwhelming and you have a bit of a budget, consider hiring our maintenance services at WPOven. Here’s what you get:
24/7 maintenance and support
Constant monitoring to ensure your site is always online
Regular updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins
Routine backups and removal of malware
Emergency support when needed
Our experts can identify and solve complex problems that automated tools might overlook, tailoring solutions to your specific needs.
We hope this article helps you understand how to redesign your WordPress site. However, if you have any doubts or suggestions in your mind, please do let us know in the comment section below.
Rahul Kumar is a web enthusiast, and content strategist specializing in WordPress & web hosting. With years of experience and a commitment to staying up-to-date with industry trends, he creates effective online strategies that drive traffic, boosts engagement, and increase conversions. Rahul’s attention to detail and ability to craft compelling content makes him a valuable asset to any brand looking to improve its online presence.
