A Strategic Approach to Website Redesign Results in Success
PORTLAND, OREGON — Total Design Shop offers results-based website redesign services for companies, organizations and individuals throughout the Portland, Oregon region and beyond.
"We understand that our clients are looking to improve results with a website redesign and many want to calculate ROI—that's why we really take pride in our comprehensive, custom-tailored approach. Our talented designers and tech-savvy developers utilize a collaborative process, working to create a unique platform that meets the client's precise needs. Each website has unique dynamics and purpose, so you must craft a custom platform that serves to efficiently satisfy both the needs of the client and the client's target audience," explained Todd Smith, President at Total Design Shop.
Established in 2002, Total Design Shop has been refining its process for more than a decade. The website design team begins by analyzing the client's objectives, their current website, their niche and target audience, competitors and their brand personality, among other factors. Based on these findings, a detailed website development plan is created with strategies for social media, search engine performance and mobile strategy. From there, creative and technical specifications are outlined and a set of key performance indicators are established.
The Total Design Shop's team then utilizes common information architecture techniques to define site map and produce initial wireframes to organize elements. Once wireframes are acceptable, creative conceptualization of the new and improved website incarnation are designed. After a bit of refinement and collaboration with the client, the Total Design Shop developers get to work transforming the framework into a fully-functioning website that meets all of the client's needs and requirements. User testing is introduced early in the process and continues throughout to create high quality user experience.
"The user is so incredibly important in the equation and that is why we really work to simplify user experience. What's more, an increasing number of internet users are accessing the web with mobile devices—smartphones, iPhones, tablets. We work to create a mobile-friendly interface, many times a responsive design, in addition to a traditional desktop interface," Smith explained.
The Total Design Shop team then works hand-in-hand with business owners to refine their online presence with social media campaigns, advertising campaigns, search engine marketing and search engine optimization.
Social media is an increasingly powerful arena and content marketing is more important than ever. Total Design Shop helps clients to effectively leverage social media outlets with features like integrated social feeds and social sharing capabilities to encourage connection and sharing.
Success is measurable and Total Design Shop utilizes tools to monitor and track the data necessary to determine the efficacy of a website redesign, marketing campaign or social media campaign.
The Holiday Tree Farms website redesign project is a perfect example of tracking and measuring success. Holiday's website traffic was tracked the entire year prior to the redesigned website deployment and compared to the immediate nine month period after launch. The results were overwhelmingly successful. With modified information architecture, improved user experience design, search engine optimization and a small Pay Per Click campaign, the numbers illustrate a very clear picture.
While there are some impressive gains, the ultimate goal of a website redesign is to measure a tangible indicator that can have an impact on the bottom line of the organization, and in this case, that indicator is conversions. 
Conversions for Holiday are leads generated through their lengthy request for pricing form—gathering basic contact and location information, tree types, sizes and quantities, shipping options and a number of other pertinent bits of information.
The website content was reorganized and optimized to perform well with regard to search engines and still provide the user with an excellent experience. The Pay Per Click campaign provided an initial spark in bringing traffic to the website, but the optimization has paid dividends with increased organic search results and creating much more visibility with 27 keywords in the top three results, up from just 1 before the website redesign and 43 keywords coming up on the first page of results, up from 3 before. But, as mentioned earlier, the tangible Key Performance Indicator is conversions and that has been the largest improvement, where the website generated only 4 leads prior to the website redesign. Post website redesign has generated over 130 quality leads, significantly impacting the bottom line.
The Total Design Shop team attributes this success to the seamless blend of website design, social media, digital marketing, SEO and branding.
“We call it a multi-channel approach to success,” Smith remarked, adding, “The internet has really become a multi-faceted creature. People are accessing your website from their desktop computers, from their cell phones, from their tablets. They're sharing your articles on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+. Visitors have come to expect a responsive, engaging experience. A static site simply doesn't cut it anymore. So we'll transform your website or blog into a platform that's dynamic, responsive and engaging. That's the key to succeeding in the current web environment.”
A professional website redesign won't just improve user experience and increase traffic. A streamlined, responsive and dynamic site design is conducive to a more positive perception among visitors. A visitor's impression of a site can have a dramatic impact on whether they view the information presented on-site as credible or authoritative. Credibility is essential to building a developed following, client base or audience.
In addition to website redesign services, Total Design Shop can assist with branding, social media campaign development, marketing and print design.
