Why do I want to redesign my web site?
Can these issues be improved with tweaks to the current site or with an SEO initiative?
Is this an isolated initiative to make the site prettier? or is it part of a larger comprehensive marketing plan to improve sales? - What are the lead generation and revenue increase goals that I want to achieve from my web redesign?
Who is my customer?
What questions does my customer have that I should answer through the site?
What is my customer’s buying process? - How will the new site mimic that?
What’s the story and how will it be told?
What will the SEO implications be?
How will the new site sell? - What will be the calls to action on the site? Do they cover all the steps of the buying cycle?
What is the site content plan? How will the content be managed, so that you don’t end up with a beautiful new site that has no content?
What is the Search Engine Optimization strategy? - What are the most important keywords to rank your site?
How will the new site be kept fresh and updated - What is the content creation strategy - How does that relate to story to be told?
Will it be accessible via mobile?
What’s the team background - Have they developed sites similar to what I want?
Did they explain clearly what is the process to optimize my website and the reason behind every step of the project framework?
Are they a creative design firm? Or are they a firm that looks at the whole picture and focuses on the results of the site?
What are some of the traffic, lead generation and revenue improvement results that they have accomplished in other projects as a result of web redesign?
How do they track those results?
What are the projects and budgets needed to generate those kind of results?
Do they have any certifications?
Have they won any awards beyond creative design?
How will the project be managed? - Is there a project management software that they will use to interact with key people in your company? Or is everything based on email?
How does the firm charge? - Golden platter all inclusive type project based on a set of deliverables previously agreed upon? Or is there an initial budget but if time runs out, they start charging by the hour leading to an endless over spending craze?
If there is a bug and the project is launched, will they charge to fix it, or is there a warranty policy?
What are some references / business cases?
What will be the staffing needs to maintain the site?
How will we spread the word about it?
How will I measure the success?
What will be the cost and how will the ROI be calculated?
How will I keep up with all the leads generated through the website
And the most important question relates to the fact that no website project should be considered a complete marketing project. Your website redesign is the first important step (if done properly) of an effective marketing program:
30.1 What is my plan to continue to improve traffic and conversion... forever?