Website revamp - what should the priorities be?

[S Isaac]

I had a website built quite a few years back and it was outsourced abroad. It looked pretty much like we wanted it to, but it was generally poorly built (not responsive, slow loading, difficult to update etc).

We've made changes over the years and tried to improve things by using plugins for better security and mobile friendliness etc.

However, it's definitely had it's day and I'm looking to use this opportunity to make sure we make some decent improvements.

To start with, I'm looking at for fast responsive theme (not sure about the latest HTML, CSS etc?) - So far I'm liking the look of https://generatepress.com/ - does anyone have any experience with it or is it a bit more of a case of "most themes pretty much the same, it's what you do with them that counts"?

I'm also going to get SSL from my host (TSO Host).
I've also managed to build up a few reviews on Google & Facebook and wanted to use something like https://richplugins.com/ to do this. Is there a free/better one to use?

I know it's probably a bit backwards, but I want to get these things done and then have a more thorough technical review of how good/bad my new site is. Does anyone know what the main things not mentioned above should be considered quite high on the list of things to ensure are right on the new site? Do I need to worry about things like the latest HTML/CSS etc?

 

[fisicx]

The priority should be to determine how you plan to market the business. This will drive the content on the site which in turn will determine the structure of the site. Once that’s all done you can use whatever theme you want.

Research and planning first, website second.

 

[S Isaac]

I agree. However, as the site is already up and running with content in it, the idea was to get (and I hate this phrase) a few 'quick wins' that would be cheap to implements, hopefully increase work generated by increased clicks/calls and then move onto the more complicated longer term work required for the site, including link building.

At the moment, the content seems to have all transferred over okay. We've dropped a few things like sliders etc, but now the site looks a bit bare and amateurish.

Looking at competitors at the moment for a few ideas. I think I've got an idea what we need and should hopefully only be a bit of tweaking to the code to achieve it.

For now, the next step is SSL which I'll hopefully get done this week.

 

[fisicx]

But how do you know it’s the right content?

A quick win is often some analysis of your analytics to make sure the content matches expectations. Get the content right and people won’t care too much about how the site looks.

 

[The Longley Sales Academy]

I will assume you're revamping your website to improve customer experience, aesthetics and/or SEO. Can't really speak to aesthetics or customer experience (it all depends what your website is for), but from the SEO point of view I'd focus on: mobile friendly/ responsive design (it has now become a hugely important SEO factor), site loading speed, HTML page size and HTML compression, SSL, CSS/JS minification and page caching.