The Website Redesign Checklist

© 2013 htmlcut.com
How to Improve Your Website
A Checklist to Answer
Before You Start Redesigning

A Checklist to Answer Before You Start Redesigning
© 2013 htmlcut.com
The website life cycle includes a lot of phases:
Design, PSD to HTML/CSS conversion,
back-end development, testing, beta stage,
official launch, regular operation,
gathering of feedbacks and comments,
analysis of website and marketing statistics,
improvements and updates,
and so forth.
Of these one of the most important actions are the
'improvements and updates'.

© 2013 htmlcut.com
Below you'll find a checklist for
- those who have decided to optimize their website
and
- those who are developing the website from scratch and
want to know things that may be essential for
the further site improvement.
There are 9 chapters and 80+ questions.
We assume that the reader knows in general
what is behind the question and uses this questionnaire
as a cheat sheet.

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is your website design on modern lines or it looks like a relic of
the early days of the web?
● Is the design professional? These points are especially crucial
for business sites for which design is subconsciously projected
onto the service or product quality: obsolete and/or amateur
design ==> bad service / product quality.
● Is the design effective? Does the design help to convey the
main ideas behind your website and to achieve its goals?
Design

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is there synergy between your design and content? Does the
design support content or they live unrelated 'lives'?
● Is the design pertinent? Is it too bright / dark or contrast or
with bizarre fonts unsuitable for your industry and target
audience? Maybe the design is associated with undesired or
wrong topics, characters or events?
● Does your website make a good impression? Is it memorable
(in a positive sense) or you use a hackneyed theme with stock
images which are published 3 million times on other websites?
Design

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is there a feeling of the website / brand personality? Is there a
human voice in your design?
● Is your website emotive? Can full-screen / large images or
video backgrounds help to make the website more exciting?
● Is the design skeuomorphic? Possibly flat design will be more
suitable?
Design

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● If the visitor scans your website, can he or she understand
what is your website about and which information / options
are available on the website?
● Is there a visual guideline how to use the website? Is the
website navigation intuitive and consistent?
● Is placement of the website elements and their functioning
understandable and similar on different pages or they require
the visitor to think or guess?
Usability and User Experience

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is the website stuffed with cluttered, redundant or even
irrelevant information, images or Call-to-Action buttons which
confuse visitors? Or every piece of information is to the point,
in the right place and for the right reason?
● Is it easy to read the content? Is contrast between fore- and
background colors acceptable? Are the type face, font size,
line height, margins and white space reasonable?
These are important in case there are large pieces of textual
information on your website or the target audience is people who
may have weak eyesight.

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is your content properly formatted and easy-to-scan
(paragraphs of 4-6 lines, sufficient number of sub-headers,
lists, and quotes)?
● Are there appropriate images and illustrations which make
visual breaks or only a solid flow of text, text and text?
● Is there an overwhelming or annoying use of bold and italic? Is
there a lot of center justified text?

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is the content correct from the point of view of spelling and
grammar?
● Do you use unsolicited pop-ups or irritating banners?
● Are there audio or video files which are loaded automatically
and the visitor cannot stop or mute them?
● If there are widgets or features, are they easy-to-use and
useful for the website visitors?

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is your website for humans or search engines?
● Is the website developed for the right people? Is the design
and content engaging and understandable for the target
audience?
● Is the website design and content about you and your
company or about customers' needs and problem solving?
● Is it easy to find out what your services or products are about
and why your company is the best choice?
Marketing

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is the website copy effective? Headlines and slogans - Are
they just a bunch of words to fill the white space or every
word and its position is well thought-out?
● Are your contacts visible well on the website? Are they present
on each page or only on the Contact page?
● Is there clear Call-to-Action? Is Call-to-Action overdone,
confusing or too blatant?
Marketing

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Are the Call-to-Action buttons / links effective? For example,
their shape, size, color, wording, and position can increase the
website conversion rate in several times.
● Are forms (for example, on 'Contact us' or 'Order' pages) easy
to deal with? Do they contain a reasonable number (as few as
possible) of fields with clear meanings?
● Is there the Help or FAQ section? What about consumer
guides, free reports or reviews?
Marketing

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Does the website provide visitors with appropriate response
after important operations?
● Are there testimonials? Are they true words from real people
or canned ones?
● Is your website trustworthy? Are there elements that build
trust and credibility?
● How often do you add new content? Is it stale? If so, what is
the reason - maybe it is technically difficult or inconvenient to
do that?
Marketing

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Does the website provide necessary legal information and
guarantees? (it is especially important for e-commerce, SaaS,
and so on)
● Do you use one large website for all your businesses / services
/ products or there are a central (corporate) website plus a
number of specialized websites for the most important
services or products which are easily found and accessed by
consumers?
Marketing

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Which versions of HTML and CSS are used on your website?
What about HTML5 and CSS3? Possibly they are more efficient
and reasonable for your website now.
● Is the website HTML / CSS / JavaScript code errorless? Does
your website look and function correctly?
● Is your website W3C standards valid? (you can check that on
the W3C sites validator.w3.org and jigsaw.w3.org/css-
validator/)
PSD to HTML conversion & coding

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is the website table-based?
● Is the HTML / CSS code understandable and easy to update
and modify? Is it clean, structured and commented or there
are a lot of code garbage and remains of coding experiments
and failed improvements?
● Does your website look and work identically in different
popular web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE)?

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is the website code SEO semantic?
● What about accessibility?
● Is the loading time of your website small?

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Are page URLs SEO-friendly?
● Are 'title' and meta 'description' tags appropriate and different
for every page?
● Are there a reasonable number of relevant and right keywords
and their synonyms in the content?
● Do images have relevant 'alt' attributes? Are image names
descriptive or look like 'img12345.png'?
SEO

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Do you or your SEO company use black SEO tricks?
● Is the website overoptimized (for example, too many
keywords)?
● Are the website pages adequately interlinked?
● Does the website have sitemaps (both an HTML version and
XML one)? Are they fresh?
● Is there a lot of Flash or Javascript on the website? Are they
necessary and optimized or used on the principle of 'why not'?
SEO

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is there a large number of images? Is it possible to substitute
them or their textual elements for web-fonts? (web-fonts are
much more SEO friendly) If not, maybe a rollover 'image' -
'textual description' or other HTML/CSS/JS techniques which
display text on clicking or mouse hover are the solution?
● Are there broken links on your website? What about 'orphan'
pages?
● Is there duplicate content? How do you solve the pagination
problems?
SEO

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is your content unique and of high quality or a spinned, stolen
or worthless garbage?
● Are there backlinks to your website from low quality resources?
How many backlinks are there with your main exact keywords
as an anchor text?
● Is there authorship information on your website?
● Do you use social snippets on your website? What about
schema.org microdata?
SEO

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Does your website have sufficient functionality - search,
slideshows, catalogs, online calculators or document
generators, just to name a few? Is it competitive enough in
comparison with websites of your rivals?
● Is your website interactive? Are there contact or feedback
forms on your website? What about online chat?
● Do you use Google / Bing maps on your website?
● Are there videos? Photo galleries?
Functionality and Features

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Do you have active accounts in the social networks? Do they
have a decent (for websites in your niche) number of fans?
● Is the website linked to your active accounts on Facebook or
Twitter?
● Is it easy to 'Like' or Retweet your content or Pin images?
● Is it possible to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter(s), RSS
feed(s) or follow you on Facebook, Twitter or Google+?
● Is there a blog on your website? Is it alive?
Sociability

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● How well is your website displayed on mobile devices and
tablets? For example, is it convenient to browse and use it on
iPhone or iPad?
● Is the layout of your website responsive?
● How do images on your website look on the Retina displays?
● Does your website support such mobile functionality as touch
screen operations or geographic location awareness?
Mobility

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is there Flash animation? (it doesn't work on iPhones or iPads)
● Are the design elements large enough to be easy-to-use on
touch screens?
● Do you use mouse-overs (rollovers)? (they need a special
treatment on touch screen devices)
Mobility

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Is it easy to update content, for example, to add a new page
or image, change a phrase or modify a page title? Can you do
this job without assistance or you need to ask IT staff?
● Is your website scalable? For instance, can it cope with
suddenly increased traffic?
● Is your website safe and reliable?
● Can the website be localized for the different markets?
Updates and Maintenance

© 2013 htmlcut.com
● Does your CMS (content management system) correctly
support new versions of necessary plug-ins or there are
problems with their compatibility?
● Is it easy to make a backup version of the website?
Updates and Maintenance

© 2013 htmlcut.com
Summary
The website improvement is a task
that should be done almost on a daily basis,
because the web and competitive market environment
are changing continuously.
By keeping your website up to date you are constantly improving
your business effectiveness and customers' satisfaction.
This is a long way but it leads to success.
Read more on our blog www.htmlcut.com/blog

© 2013 htmlcut.com
HTMLcut.com
is a leading PSD to HTML / HTML5 / CSS
and PSD to WordPress / Joomla! / Drupal
conversion company.
For more information:
info@htmlcut.com
www.htmlcut.com
htmlcut.com/blog

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