Download this for free here: http://www.widerfunnel.com/blackpaper-horror-stories If you've ever been through a website redesign, you'll enjoy WiderFunnel's new whitepaper, which, in the spirit of Halloween, we're calling a "blackpaper." It's called "Website Redesign Horror Stories: The Top 9 Nightmares to Vanquish!" and is available as a free to download. We realized that, although we hear repeatedly from marketers about their horrible website redesign experiences, they're often not widely shared. It's so common to hear of the over-budget, late-delivery, and post-redesign conversion rate drops, that it's become predictable. Most marketers are not comfortable sharing their experiences publicly to avoid awkward situations at the office. But we, as impartial observers, can share the themes to help you avoid their situations. Check out the horror stories and how to avoid them!

1. A WiderFunnel Blackpaper:
Website Redesign Horror Stories
The Top 9 Nightmares to Vanquish!
!“Anybody can say charming things and try
to please and to flatter, but a true friend
always says unpleasant things, and does not
mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really
true friend he prefers it, for he knows that
then he is doing good.”
- Oscar Wilde
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2. 2
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
Are you considering a website redesign?
Beware the terrifying tales of
woe that lie within.
Study this blackpaper thoroughly
and be warned!
“The team was focused on creating a beautiful new
identity, and everyone was convinced that the new
branding and homepage would help take the brand
to a new level,” he told me.
At WiderFunnel, we often hear from companies who
have gone through an ambitious website redesign –
often after years of neglecting their site. They
always start out optimistically, expecting great
results.
But in the end, they get a trick, not a treat – falling
victim to just one of the many ghouls and goblins
that plague website redesigns.
Cont…
Find out what happened.
That’s what happened to Josh Braaten of Collegis
Education when a client of his revamped their entire
website and brand recently. This is an entirely true
tale, in his own words:
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3. 3
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
This story was off to a brilliant start, but things
quickly turned for the worse.
He continues,
“We re-launched the homepage with the new look
and waited for the leads to come pouring in, but
they never did.
The new homepage actually tanked
conversion rates by 20%!”
What a nightmare! That’s a plot twist no one
expects.
But the scary truth is, terrifying results like these
aren’t unusual with website redesigns. This is, in
fact, a common outcome of a website redesign
overhaul.
They fell victim to what we call Website Redesign
Gremlins. When making wholesale website
redesigns, these scary little gremlins can gnaw away
at your overall conversion rates.
Now, this marketer was lucky: They could see their
conversion rate plummet, so they could quickly
correct it, even if it meant reverting back to the old
design. Not everyone is so lucky. There are plenty
more bloodbath stories.
Another senior executive, who wishes to remain
anonymous, told a similar story. After spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars on their new
travel tourism ecommerce booking website, the
project scope has become so bloated it was
delivered months late and far over-budget.
To multiply the damage, when the new website
finally launched, their conversion rates dropped
dramatically. The promised revenue improvement
never did appear.
Unfortunately, this company didn’t have
an easy exit from their situation.
After exhausting their budget,
they had to stick with the
new website and try to fix
the conversion problems.
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4. 4
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
The first nightmare: Website Redesign Gremlins
Given their small size and their ability to hide,
Website Redesign Gremlins are often difficult to
spot. You make so many changes in an epic
redesign that it’s impossible to see how all the little
decisions will affect results.
The result? Even if your conversion rate could have
been bumped up, these gremlins could be hiding
and causing your overall conversion rate to drop.
A whole series of changes – each with its own
impact on conversion rate – can help give gremlins
a place to hide. For example, your new lean-gen
contact form, call-to-action buttons, and survey
popup may be less effective than before the
redesign.
Without the revealing spotlight of A/B testing, you’ll
never be able to find these scary critters, as they
lurk in the shadows, eating away at your
conversions – and profits – day after day.
Spooky!
Watch out
for these
Gremlins!
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5. 5
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
But your website redesign project doesn’t have to be a horror story...
There is a less risky approach than a complete
website redesign—one that maximizes your
conversion-rate improvement by isolating the
impact of individual changes. This approach gives
Website Redesign Gremlins and the other
conversion-killing ghouls no place to hide: it’s called
evolutionary site redesign (ESR), where new
design, layout, and content elements are tested
continuously, evolving your website with proven
clarity toward the best-performing ideal.
It’s evolution instead of revolution. Because, let’s face
it, revolutions are messy, unpredictable things that
rarely end up as planned.
In an ESR redesign, you prioritize your most
important pages, page templates and site-wide
elements then test new layouts, design, and content
with controlled split testing. You get all the benefits
of a new site design without the risks.
ESR uses tried and true conversion rate
optimization principles to redesign your site. You
end up with a new site “look and feel” and
conversion-rate lift at the same time.
This measured, results-based approach protects
your website from mischievous gremlins who are so
good at sabotaging full scale website redesigns. But
the Gremlins aren’t the only creepy characters that
can turn your website redesign into a horror story.
Let’s meet some others…
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6. 6
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
Mummies
body, a Mummy’s brains
To help preserve theirWhen you’re talking aboutand
innards are removed.
Website Redesign Mummies, these modifications
really show: They can’t think for themselves and
have no guts!
Website Redesign Mummies are always wrapped
up in mimicking the “the next new thing.” A few
years ago, it was using splashy Flash effects on the
homepage. Then it was everything “Web 2.0.” Now
it’s likely to be social features, video, apps, rotating
home page carousels – whatever the flashy new
thing that’s out there, they’ll all turn to follow
without thinking – or testing it.
With ESR, new interface methods and approaches
can be tested to see if they actually improve
business results and not just look “fresh.” The
Conversion Champion is a fully living and thinking
hero – with an intact brain and the guts to use it –
who is open to new ideas that are proven effective
through A/B testing!
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7. Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
7
Zombies
Zombies move mindlessly in large packs, drawn in
by any random noise or movement. Website
Redesign Zombies also travel in groups, slavishly
following so-called “best practices” without ever
testing if they truly apply to their own
circumstances.
Amazon uses gold “Add to Cart” buttons? We should
too! Drool…
Standard approaches can be a good starting point
for gathering new testing ideas, but smart
Conversion Champions don’t stumble around
following the pack brainlessly. They know that the
only best practice really worth biting into is the
practice of rigorous conversion
testing to find out what really
works for their unique
situation.
The trouble with zombies is that they can quickly
spread and infect others. Large gatherings of them
(also referred to as “Conferences” or “Summits”)
cause unsuspecting marketers to be bitten by the
zombie infection. They soon begin to mimic their
competitors and so-called “experts” and their brains
atrophy from disuse.
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8. Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
8
Princesses
Now, you may not count fairy princesses among the
usual monsters of Halloween, but like the seductive
sirens of Greek mythology – beautiful creatures who
lured sailors with their enchanting music and voices
to shipwreck on the rocky shore – Website
Redesign Princesses can lead you to ruin you with
their beauty.
You see, a princess doesn’t have to actually
accomplish anything. Your website, on the other
hand, does have a very important job to do. And
your customers want more than just a pretty face.
Conversion Champions aren’t fooled by beauty
alone. They resolutely focus on business goals and
results. By using the Goals Waterfall, they maintain
a direct line-of-sight from the website’s goals up to
business goals. Sexy new design treatments need to
prove their value in driving business profit. No free
rides for a pretty princess!
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9. 9
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
Frankenstein’s Monster
Once a major redesign is started, every department
will have an opinion, and will want to control it or
get their content front and center on the home
page. Made up of mismatched parts that don’t work
together, the Website Redesign Frankenstein
effect turns your website into a slow-moving,
brainless monster that terrifies the villagers – and
your visitors.
ESR helps guard against the Website Redesign
Frankenstein effect by improving elements
incrementally, rather than throwing everything out
and starting with a blank slate. By testing and
improving site-wide template layouts like Product
Detail Page layouts, Persistent Calls-to-Action,
Category Page templates and consistent button
treatments, the Conversion Champion maintains
consistency across their prospects’ experience and
maximizes visitor enjoyment – and conversion
rates!
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10. 10
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
The Invisible Man
A full-scale website redesign can often affect web
page URLs, the underlying code, and the
distribution of content – all of which can have a
negative impact on your hard-won SEO ranking –
turning your new site into a Website Redesign
Invisible Man! This is especially risky if the redesign
coincides with adopting a new content
management system (CMS).
The ESR approach, on the other hand, keeps your
site visible, since you make changes incrementally
on a page-by-page basis. This lets you keep track of
how content changes affect your rankings, and is
less likely to lead to disruptive site-wide changes
that can make your site disappear from sight.
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11. 11
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
The Scary HiPPO
HiPPO? No, not the savannah, mud-rolling type of
hippo. I’m talking about the highest-paid person’s
opinion. When crucial decisions about your website
redesign are based on the highest paid person’s
opinion – and aren’t challenged or supported by
data – you’re about to be crushed by the Website
Redesign HiPPO. And believe me, this HiPPO
carries a lot of weight and can crush the
effectiveness of your redesign.
Thankfully, since ESR is all about results you’re
always armed with a perfect defense against this
beast. You see, scary Website Redesign HiPPOs
run away when faced with data that disproves their
options. Fortunately, a testing approach also allows
the HiPPO opportunities to have their opinions
proven correct sometimes too!
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12. 12
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
The Scope Creep
There are a load of creeps lurking around on
Halloween, but the scariest website redesign creep
is Website Redesign Scope Creep. What starts off
as a simple change becomes more complicated as
different people clamor for new features. Suddenly
the wish list grows, new technology is introduced,
and, before you know it, the number of changes has
multiplied tenfold.
ESR’s incremental, step-by-step approach ensures
that your website never gets out of hand. It is
constantly evolving and staying ahead of the
competition. The iterative nature of the
improvements means that you never face the
daunting and overwhelming task of an epic
overhaul – and the scary Website Redesign Scope
Creep that often come with it.
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13. 13
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
Vampire
The Website Redesign Vampire is smooth-talking
and charismatic. It’s easy to get hypnotized by the
dream of a new and improved website. But the
result is blood-sucking, budget-killing redesigns that
go over budget, and way past deadline. Remember,
time means nothing to these ageless beasts.
Not only do they suck your budget, they don’t stick
around for long. They love you and leave you until
the next redesign cycle.
In a company that practices traditional Radical Site
Redesigns (RSR), not only do they face all these risks
in-between redesigns, their website continues to
have its blood drained compared with competitors.
Instead of a risky overhaul, you have a measured,
controlled process that drives a stake through the
heart of the blood-sucking Website Redesign
Vampire.
Because evolved companies are always testing, ESR
is like garlic to Website Redesign Vampires.
Budgets are predictable on an ongoing basis, and
you get an actionable set of results in a short period
of time.
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14. 14
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
Thankfully, like all Halloween trick or treat
adventures, sometimes horror stories have a sweet
ending.
After their run-in with the Website Redesign
Gremlins, the marketer we heard from earlier at
our friend’s higher education company are
Evolutionary Site Redesign converts, and won’t
even consider changing high-impact experiences on
their website without a controlled A/B test. Having
been tricked once, they’re more focused than ever
on protecting their treats.
Those 9 nightmare scenarios are frightening, but
they don’t need to be. There’s another way.
Cont…
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15. 15
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
How You Can Avoid these Nightmares Too
By adopting the Evolutionary Site
Redesign approach you can guard
against these nasty creatures while
dramatically improving your website
every day.
As you saw with the goals waterfall
above, once you’ve defined your
website’s goals clearly, you can test and
continuously optimize to improve on
them.
Continuous
marketing
improvement!
With ESR, your website will continuously
keep up and surpass the success of the
rest of the web.
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16. 16
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
How ESR Works
ESR works by implementing a system of continuous A/B split testing throughout your entire website and
digital marketing. Rather than relying on the gut-feeling and flawed intuition of an art director, your
website decisions should be made against the crucible of customer actions.
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17. 17
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
How ESR Works
Before ESR
When LemonFree.com, the vehicle search
engine, needed a website redesign, they
knew it had to maintain their revenue too
or it would be a bad business decision.
Through A/B/n testing of many home
page designs, they gained a design that
looked great and lifted revenue by 10.9%.
Then, testing throughout the rest of their
site-wide templates improved the design
and lifted revenue-per-visitor by an
additional 84.7%!
After ESR: Good looks that boost revenue too
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18. 18
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
How ESR Works
Before ESR
Expensify is a fast-growth startup with a
lean team facing large competitors. The
expensify.com home page is the
company’s primary landing page for free
online signups. When they needed to
improve the signup conversion rate, they
came to WiderFunnel for a redesign.
WiderFunnel used Evolutionary Site
Redesign to A/B/n test new page designs.
The result has been massive 47.2% lift in
new user signup conversion rate,
surpassing 1 million users.
After ESR: A highly profitable, proven redesign
Find more inspiration:
You can find many more A/B test result case studies at
http://www.widerfunnel.com/case-studies
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19. 19
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
You too can start ESR now!
You should test everything in your web
marketing:
• Landing page design & content
• Your product or service value proposition
statements
• Lead generation forms, shopping cart and
checkout
• Product page templates
• Home page design, eyeflow, merchandising
• Imagery, copywriting, ads, calls-to-action, and
offers
• Site-wide design styles
• Logo, header and tagline
• And everything in-between!
To find out how you can implement an Evolutionary
Site Redesign strategy, talk with the ESR experts at
WiderFunnel.
Request a Custom Proposal from the
ESR Experts at WiderFunnel
Email: iwant@widerfunnel.com
Or, learn more at http://www.widerfunnel.com
But, it’s important to test the right things in the right
order with the right methodology to get the best
results.
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20. 20
Blackpaper: Website Redesign Horror Stories
Read the Book that Redefines Conversion Optimization
Marketers, Founders and Corporate Executives are
finding that they get better results by championing
scientific testing and continuous improvement in
their organizations.
Download a Free Chapter
Go to: http://www.youshouldtestthat.com
In the book, you'll learn:
• How to find the triggers that move customers and
prospects to act
• How to find your ideal value proposition
• How to dramatically lift your conversion rates
with the proven testing system and frameworks
• How companies like Magento, Google, Salesforce,
Electronic Arts, Iron Mountain, SAP (and many
more) have used these techniques to get up to
400% conversion rate lift
• How to prioritize where to test and what to test
• How to move beyond just conversion rate lift to
make business decisions through tested insights.
The book includes 15 full case studies of real tests
plus many more examples of how companies are
succeeding and failing in their websites and
marketing.
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21. The Original Conversion Optimization Agency, Since 2007
Improving our clients' marketing conversion rate
and profit. That’s what we do.
Whether we’re creating A/B split tests to lift our
clients' conversions and revenue, or uncovering
insights to understand their customers, our
proprietary optimization system produces
winning results for every client.
WiderFunnel pioneered marketing optimization
strategies for companies such as Google,
Electronic Arts, SAP, Magento, Iron Mountain and
BabyAge.com. Our LIFT™ Model and Kaizen™
methods are promoted globally at conferences
and seminars, helping marketers test what really
works in their marketing to get more leads, sales
and profit.
Get more information at:
http://www.widerfunnel.com
Connect with us:
Twitter: @widerfunnel & @chrisgoward
Google+: http://bit.ly/widerfunnelplus
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™/® WiderFunnel, the WiderFunnel logo, Kaizen Method, Funnel Experiment, FunEx, L.I.F.T. and Landing page Influence Function for
Tests are trademarks or registered trademarks of WiderFunnel Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved.
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