There’s a better way to redesign your website – and it’s called growth-driven website design.

But first, let’s talk about traditional website redesign.

If you’ve ever been involved with a traditional website redesign, you will appreciate how complex, time-consuming and ineffective the process can be.

A traditional website redesign process often meant suspending the website in its current (and perhaps, unsatisfactory) state while designers, developers and coders worked on the website behind the scenes, recreating the website page for page. As the designers, developers and coders worked away, addressing every page of the website, costs would gradually escalate, new problems would arise and months would pass. A year and a half later (and in some cases more), the website might be completed – but at a great cost to the business. And, during that time, the ‘old’ website will have been on show to the world in its unsatisfactory state.

I firmly believe that the traditional website redesign processes is broken and ineffective – and here’s why:

They involve large lump-sum costs

A standard or ‘traditional’ website redesign will cost a lot of money upfront. While the redesign is split into three key areas – planning, building and testing – the upfront cost will be substantial.

They miss deadlines

Traditionally built websites usually end up missing key deadlines throughout the redesign process. With so many factors involved, from SEO and template design, to content creation and imagery, there are a lot of elements that need to be approved by lots of people, so there will undoubtedly be lots of delays along the way.

New website launch dates are delayed

Due to the specific elements that need to be approved and signed off, traditional websites builds typically ‘go live’ much later than previously planned. In most cases, you will probably have to pay more for the extra work that needs to be done to meet the now delayed deadline.

They result in stagnant websites with poor results

With the focus on the website redesign, when the website finally goes live, you will have gone a year – or even more – without collecting any actionable data to determine what works on your website and what does not. Sure, you’ll have a new website – but does it actually work?

Moreover, the site will likely remain unedited and untouched for one or two years before another website redesign is deemed necessary.

But here’s the kicker;

Did you know that, usually, 80 per cent of your website traffic comes from 20 per cent of your website?

That’s right; 80 per cent of all of your website traffic comes from just 20 per cent of your total web pages.

That 20 per cent represents your website’s most ‘high value’ pages – and these are the ones you want to focus on first – and that’s where growth-driven website design comes in.

With a growth-driven website design approach, you focus on that 20 per cent of your website – the pages that generate the most traffic, leads and enquiries for your business. You build your website iteratively, starting from a launch-pad website consisting of your highest value pages, and agree to add more pages every month. You then bring analytics into the mix, assessing your top pages to understand how visitors are interacting with them, and then use this information to determine how you should design the rest of your website.

See also: What’s the best website builder for my small business?

Through growth-driven website design you can:

• Launch your site much more quickly

Rather than recreating your entire website, page by page, with growth-driven website design, you launch 20 per cent of your website – which will be your highest value pages. So, if you have 100 pages on your website, you will go live with 20 of those pages initially. This launch-pad website is considerably easier to launch, as fewer design decisions and approvals need to be made. The development process is far more effective, as you start with your best performing pages.

• Build your site over time with live data – doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t

Once the first stage of your website build is complete, you can start analysing the data accumulated on all of your web pages (such as web visits, clicks, conversion rates, heat maps and the like), rather than rebuilding the entire website without any knowledge of what actually works. With this information at hand, you can then make informed decisions on what elements of your website work well, such as content, templates, imagery, designs, calls-to-action and much more.

• Spread your investment over 12 months

Instead of paying a large lump sum cost upfront,, with growth-driven website design, the costs of the build are split over a 12-month period.

• Launch on time, and on budget

Remember those key deadlines you missed that took the project off course and off budget – and the launch date that was missed by months? Well, with growth-driven website design, you launch on time (and in some cases, ahead of schedule) and on budget. Costs are minimised as you spread payment for the project over 12 months – and there is far less risk involved as you are not paying upfront, instead refining and expanding your website iteratively. As a result, you stay on budget and launch on time.

So, there we have it, the newest – and best – way to build a website. At The B2B Marketing Lab, we specialise in website design and redesign, utilising HubSpot and a growth-driven approach. HubSpot’s growth stack has all the tools you need to help your website – and your business – to grow, attract visitors and generate high quality leads.

Forget traditional website redesign – choose growth-driven website design!

Bob Dearsley is CEO of The B2B Marketing Lab

Related: Can your website keep up with your business growth?