From Outdated to Outstanding: How A Website Redesign Can Boost Membership
An outdated website can be a significant liability for any club or association, negatively impacting the user experience and deterring potential new members. A strategic website redesign can transform your club website into a modern, professional tool, acting as a powerful asset to help boost membership and enhance member engagement. Investing in a fresh website design is an investment in your organisation's future, ensuring your digital presence is outstanding and reflects the value you provide.
The style of all things changes over time; it's a necessary part of the world. These changes may be subtle, but over time, they make a big difference. I'm certainly guilty of accusing the iPhone of never changing. However, if you compare the first iPhone to today’s model, you can really see 17 years of those subtle changes.
Also, am I the only one who wishes that phones didn’t get so damn big? Bring back Zoolander’s tiny flip phone, I say.
My point is that all products and services are constantly evolving to better meet their users' needs and to make their marketing more appealing. This applies to websites as well; companies' websites are constantly changing and developing to better appeal to customers.
You can see this in practice below. On the left are several websites from today, and on the right are those same websites from 2020.
None of these websites are night and day different, but they have all changed. There’s less colour; even the logos are now black and white. The menus are minimalist and smaller, and there are more images, which are larger. Looking through those websites to take screenshots made it very clear that writing is getting smaller, images are getting bigger, and they are almost like swiping through a social media timeline.
These changes are the sum of lots of minor tweaks over time. A big company like GoPro or Samsung will be constantly tweaking and changing its website. For the average club or association, however, that’s just not practical.
What you should be doing instead is updating your website design every few years to help keep it fresh, modern and effective. If you do this, coupled with adding fresh new content to your website as regularly as possible, you can ensure that your website stays as effective a tool as possible.
So today, let’s talk about why it is important to keep your website up-to-date and how you can do so.
The Problem Of Having An Outdated Website
Your website is the first impression the vast majority of people will get of your organisation, and it’s also how your members will interact with you a lot of the time. Therefore, your website should be easy to navigate, fast, reliable, and visually appealing.
Now, if you are a Member Jungle customer, you won’t have to worry about the first three ever. Part of the package of signing up with a system like ours is that we are constantly updating it to ensure it keeps pace with changing technology. So your Member Jungle website will always be easy to navigate, fast, and reliable.
However, the "visually appealing" part is a little different. When we first set up your website, it will be stylish and modern. However, since website styles are constantly evolving, the visual side of your website will likely need a touch-up every so often. If you don’t keep your website looking fresh and new, it will start giving members a worse experience. Your website will still be just as fast and convenient, but if it starts to look outdated, members will judge it based on its looks and assume that it is. Then they may get the wrong impression that you don’t care about it, or that it’s cheap and outdated; all things you don’t want potential new members thinking. Basically, if your website looks like it's stuck in the past, people may assume your organisation is too.
The Benefits Of A Website Redesign For Your Membership Organisation
A website redesign offers several benefits for your organisation, improving how you operate and how members engage with you. It makes your website look more modern and professional. When someone clicks on your website for the first time, they can’t see that the underlying software is cutting-edge and fast; all they can see is how it looks. Therefore, a website redesign offers several benefits for your organisation, improving how you operate and how members engage with you.
First and foremost, a fresh, user-friendly design leads to an enhanced member experience. A clean, organised layout makes it far easier for members to access information, connect with one another, and participate in club activities. This also leads to improved communication, as members can more easily stay up-to-date on all your club news, events, and announcements, which ultimately keeps them more engaged.
A modern, professional-looking website also acts as a powerful tool for attracting new members. It’s your organisation’s digital storefront and first impression. A sharp, current design showcases your club's value from the moment someone lands on the page, helping you convert curious visitors into active members.
Now that we know why an old-looking website can hurt your organisation and the benefits of getting a redesigned website, let’s have a look at that process with Member Jungle.
How Member Jungle Helps With A Website Redesign
As a Member Jungle customer, you can pay for a website redesign at any time. There are three options here, a standard redesign, a full custom website design, or a supplied design, so let’s talk about them.
A Website Redesign
The standard website redesign is where you pay for us to redesign your website by choosing one of a number of different pre-made themes. Our website designers will then build your new theme and homepage on a hidden page of your website. You will be able to review this and ask for any changes. Once you are happy with it, we will set a planned date to carefully switch your website over to this new theme and adjust all of your content and menus to work seamlessly with the new theme.
This redesign has an upfront cost of $999 AUD, and then you can choose from a list of free and paid themes. These premade themes do not cost extra and are included in the redesign fee.
You can do this at any time, without talking to a member of the Member Jungle team, by going to Member Jungle Redesigns.
A Custom Homepage Design
If none of those themes strike your fancy, you can instead choose to pay for a custom website design to be made to your specifications. If you want something custom, unique and exactly what your branding needs, then this is the option for you.
It costs a one-off fee of $1,999 AUD, and then we can design your website to your specifications.
If you are interested in this, you will need to Contact Us, and we can talk you through the process.
A Supplied Website Design
This is where you find an external third-party website designer who has a design that you love, so you pay for them to create a design for you to fulfil your every whim. Then you pay us to set up that design on your website.
This is essentially the custom design option on steroids, with every little part of your website custom-made to your exact specifications. As such, this costs a one-off fee of $5,499 AUD.
If you are interested in this, you will need to Contact Us, and we can talk you through the process.
PLEASE NOTE: The design you want to get needs to be reviewed and approved by our team first to ensure that it will all work with the Member Jungle system as you envisage it.
If you have no idea which of these three options works best for you, that’s totally okay. You can just talk to a member of the team, and they will be happy to guide you to the right option.
How To Improve Your Website
If you want more information on why a well-designed website is so important for clubs and associations, then have a read of Why Your Club Needs A Well-Designed Club Website, where I go into a lot of depth about the importance of good web design.
If you are not a Member Jungle customer but want to improve your website, check out 3 Simple Ways To Improve Your Club's Website to see how we can help.