You can’t judge a book by its cover, but students certainly judge education institutions by their websites. It’s simple: if a learning platform or school invests sufficiently in their website, people equate it to being capable of investing in other important factors like their course offerings, quality of instructors, and features relevant to student success.
We’ve discussed the wonders of applying CRO strategies to your landing page. However, there’s the other side of the coin. If CRO is the feel of the website, the design is its looks which is equally as important.
One of the things you can do this year to lock in that success formula is to breathe new life to your website by redesigning it.
What Are The Benefits Of A Website Redesign?
Each field, sector, and learner age group will have different priorities when it comes to their courses. For example, professionals need flexible study modes for their certifications while elementary students prefer the bite-sized content and frequent assessments. Knowing this can help you construct your message through just the look of the website.
Aside from improving engagement through the visual medium, redesigning (when done right, of course), increases your traffic, amps up conversions, and improves branding, thus fully optimizing your site to the latest design conventions expected by students.
When Is The Right Time For It?
It’s important to keep in mind that the digital sphere is ever-evolving and because of this, you need to constantly reinvent and innovate to keep up with competitors while also staying true to your brand. Of course, if your strategies are working for you, you don’t need to take everything down all at once and overhaul your website.
However, if you’re seeing dips in conversions despite getting traffic, or have exhausted all other marketing channels and promotions, it might be time to get a second look at your website.
Another sign would be to keep a close look at your competitors’ pages. If you’ve seen most of them sporting new templates or layouts, they might just be doing a better job of hooking your audience’s attention (and their money).
How To Get Started?
Before you commit to this process, it’s important to know a few key things about your current site:
- What elements are bringing in traffic and influencing conversions?
- What elements aren’t working? What blocks customers from converting?
- What are the pages that garner the most visitors?
- What additional things are your customers looking for?
- What are your goals for this redesigned site?
Answers to these questions are crucial so you don’t go into redesigning without a goal and a timeline in mind. They can hold you accountable so that you come out of the redesigning process with a net positive: having a more efficient website and a stronger brand.
On The Risks Of Changing Designs
As important as it is to upgrade the appearance of your site, you have to ensure that usability is still at its best. After all, a messy website can prevent conversions but a down site closes your door from all traffic. This is where the importance of having a good CRO foundation comes in.
Our team at Grow Enrollments specializes in CRO and Website Redesign that drives the most results for you depending on your goal.
