If you haven’t upgraded your website in the last few years, you have probably noticed that it doesn’t look as great, work as well or translate effectively across devices. Technology has moved so fast over the last decade that even sites built just a few years ago look dated. Therefore, these are some things you should include in a new site.

Make It Functional

Your original site had specific functions. You started the process by planning what you wanted to achieve through your homepage, informational pages, and shopping cart. However, your company has likely grown and changed. You may have new products and services, and you should have ways to distinguish yourself from your competition.

Your site goals have probably changed as well. Not only do you want to increase your sales, but you likely want to see greater lead generation capabilities. You may want newer technology that you can use to customize or personalize your customers’ experiences.

Fortunately, with today’s analytical tools, you can learn what parts of your site customers like the most, which parts they bounce off of quickly, your most- and least-viewed pages, and the effectiveness of your calls to action. Then, you can use this data to enhance your site and learn more about your users and the functionalities they desire.

Optimize Every Page

Search engines rank your site based on load time, readability, and usability. They search for headers, image titles, link descriptions, and many other things to determine how you rank on their engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your new website move up the ranks so your customers can find you easily. Any new site developments, redesigns, or upgrades need to have SEO strategies built in.

Make it Responsive

Gone are the days when you find a computer to look up a site. More than half of users now surf the web on mobile devices, such as cell phones and tablets. Therefore, your site needs to be visible across all devices. This requires technology that changes fonts, readjusts page widths and layouts, and increases functionality while delivering content to the user.

Analytics can tell you what your mobile and desktop users search for most and distinguishes between the two so you can design separate sites for each and helps you prioritize your content for specific user types. Mobile devices also rotate from landscape to portrait viewing, so the content needs to adjust with the rotation on these devices.

In addition, search engines penalize you if your site is not effectively responsive across devices.

These are just three of the redesign features you should consider in y our website redesign. Learn how these and other features can improve your user experiences.