Back in 2012 when I first started e-Brand Promotion, my company website was world-class. Topnotch! I took my time to ensure that it came out perfect. All the Skills I had acquired went into it. After all, if my website wasn’t the best, how was I going to convince anybody that I could do any better for them?
Fast-forward to 2018 – my company website was, to say the least, a disaster. First and foremost it was not responsive (remember the days of “pinch and zoom” on mobile devices), and secondly it just looked off and old-school.
But the greatest damage that my company website was doing to my business was that we were completely invisible online – Zero ranking in Google for even the most basic relevant keywords like “web designer in Nigeria”.
And the few who managed to come to the site thought we were a bunch of jokers.
How do I know that was what they thought of us?
The answer is simple. No conversions! Nobody was requesting price quotes, nobody was calling our line, nobody was emailing us. But I didn’t even care then because I was content with getting by on referrals.
Then it happened!
The referral web design jobs sources dried up. It was like a gang up. Nobody was telling anyone about eBrand Promotion.
That was when I knew I had to do something. I had bills to pay – office rent, salaries, utilities, etc. We were on the verge of bankruptcy.
I tried promoting the business on social media. But that was a waste of money that I didn’t even have. I tried a couple of other digital marketing stunts. It was like I was on a quicksand. The more I tried, the deeper I sank.
Then one day, more out of desperation than strategy, I decided to do a website redesign.
I just tore down the existing website and redesigned the whole damn thing. It took me two weeks to complete. All I wanted to do was to present our business in a better light online by having a more modern design than what we had since 2012. The content on the website was virtually the same.
Little did I know that I had made the best decision of my professional adult life.
Few weeks after the redesign, what followed was like a miracle;
- Calls started trickling in
- Few people started filling the quotation form weekly
- Inquiry emails started coming in
For the first few weeks, it just trickled. Then I knew we were onto something. I decided to change the template and use a more optimized one with better code structure and layout. Then the calls and emails increased.
I went ahead to optimize the site to load faster and render better on mobile devices. Things improved further. Then I optimized the title tags and added more content to the website. This was the turning point of everything.
It was an explosion!
A site that nobody was visiting started bringing hundreds of visitors. Then it increased to thousands over the next few months. This was when I knew the power of website redesign. All the visitors came through Google. They simply searched online and saw our website.
I didn’t have to lift a finger to get new clients.
After a couple of months that my business had picked up following the website redesign, I decided to test it on another client’s website (who is into honey business). I designed that website in 2014.
Here is what I did.
I redesigned the website into an e-commerce site and added a bit more content to each of the pages. I went ahead to optimize the site’s keyword density and did a lot of conversion rate optimization (This means the process of making a site easier for people to take action. E.g. placing an order, filling a form, tapping to call, signing up for newsletters, etc.)
What happened was nothing short of a miracle.
24 hours after redesigning this client’s website, he made his first sale on the website. What was remarkable is that this was the first successful sale in almost 4 years.
The orders and inquiries kept trickling in day after day. In fact, I was the one reminding them that they had new orders because they were not used to it.
To them, the website was just there to serve as a source of information to anyone who cared to visit. It wasn’t an avenue to get new customers.
Now, they get orders from even outside Nigeria.
Since then, I have gone on to test website redesign on a couple of old websites that I designed like 2-4 years ago.
Have we had success in all websites redesigned?
Of course not.
But the results have been between 80% – 90% success. So I can say, with some level of certainty that redesigning an old website and optimizing it works. It’s almost a guarantee.
So if you have a website that was designed like 3 – 4 years ago, you are onto something big. You are practically sitting on a gold mine. Redesigning your website and optimizing it for search engines can help drive your sales higher by more than 30%. And in some cases like mine, it can even save your dying business from going into extinction.
Finally, you must be careful when it comes to redesigning your website. If you run off and hire an amateur for N30k to handle your website redesign, you might actually not get the correct result. In such a case do not blame me.
There are a couple of tricks that make it work. These are things that you need to get right from the onset. These tricks include;
- Correct and detailed onsite search engine optimization (technical and onsite SEO)
- Conversion rate optimization
- Mobile optimization
- Site loading speed optimization
If you can get these 4 things correct, you are on your way to getting new and “ready-to-buy” customers without even raising a finger.
The good thing about getting customers through Google is that these guys and ladies are people who are already desperately in need of the products and services you offer. After all, why would anybody be searching for the “cost of website design in Nigeria” if he/she is not interested in designing a website?
In conclusion, I can assure you that redesigning your website may be the best thing that can happen to your business today. Get in touch with us right now to get started. It might actually be the best decision you would ever make as it was in my own case.
EDITED: Fast-forward to 2020 and we are practically killing it. We have practically turned it into a system (both for us and our clients). We redesigned and optimized the site again and closed our first 8-figure deal. Guess what, the conversation started with? “I was searching and got your number online”
AUTHOR: Dr. Smart Okpi is the CEO/Creative Director at eBrand Promotion. He can be reached via 08105882416 or 09034244099 or just send an email to sales@ebrandpromotion.com – I normally reply within a few hours.
