10 Tips for Successfully Re-Launching a New Website

<p>An old/outdated website sends a message that you aren’t up on the latest trends. There comes a time when every radio station needs to revamp and re-launch for better impact. For example, older websites might not be optimized for speed. You can’t afford to keep a bulky, outdated website that doesn’t look great or load fast on mobile devices.</p> <p>The general recommendation is that you redesign any website every 2–3 years. &nbsp;Much like fashion, web design has trends, and things can just start to look … old or retro.</p> <p>Relaunching your site might seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there are some simple rules of thumb you can follow that will make your re-launch not only easy but successful.</p> <p><strong>1.</strong> <strong>Benchmarks: </strong>Before you launch your website redesign, be sure to know your site’s traffic, bounce rate, average time on site, and other stats so you have an accurate picture of how successful — or unsuccessful — your re-launch will be.</p> <p><strong>2. Goals: </strong>Take a look at your competitors. &nbsp;Do some research through sites like SEORush.com to know what keywords other stations near you are ranking for (like local sports, weather, news, online listening, etc) as well as their most visited pages.</p> <p><strong>3. Research/Revamp </strong><u><strong>Your Content</strong></u><strong>: </strong>You can’t just set it and forget it on any website. You’ll need to update, modify and add new content regularly to stay relevant.</p> <p>- What do we want visitors to do when they visit? Lose the slider in favor of call-to-action?<br> - Fresh look at what on-air content can be re-purposed for online?<br> - Importing new external content?<br> - Add audio/video components? Podcasting?</p> <p><strong>4. Make a plan for SEO: </strong>SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps people find your website using keywords through Google, Bing and Yahoo! searches. If you provide local news of any kind, you want that to be visible when search for things in your area (events, news, etc).</p> <p>