3 Website Redesign Examples to Inspire Change

There comes a point when you know a website redesign is no longer optional.

Maybe your site is dated. But you’ve been putting off the inevitable, pasting on pages and building complex workarounds.

For a long time, that got you by.

But even your workarounds aren’t working anymore.

How do you know it’s time for a new website?

The first cues are likely staring right at you on the screen:

Your site looks dated.
Worse, your competitors’ sites look great.
Even worse yet, leads and conversions are way down (and going to those competitors).

But looking at those issues, you realize you have other systemic problems to address:

Your staff can’t make even small changes without a programmer.
Your site isn’t mobile responsive.
Pages take forever to load.
Your organization’s objectives have changed.
Your customers’ needs have changed.
Visitors can’t find what they need—or accomplish basic tasks.

It’s clear that a new site is imperative.

For complex B2B and member-based organizations, a new website can be daunting. You’ve likely invested a lot over the years in maintaining your site, and even if you’ve outgrown it, your teams might struggle to imagine what a new site could really be—or how it can improve both your staff and site-users’ experience.

A good website redesign agency will have proven processes that maximize efficiency throughout your project. A great website redesign partner will have the experience to adapt those processes to fit your needs—providing a customized, strategic approach that gets you the site you really need. Learn more about Refactored’s approach to website development.

The fact is, no two website projects are exactly the same. So we’re not here to suggest you look for a solution to cut and paste into your organization. But it does help to see how other organizations have approached the challenge—and see the outcomes they achieved.

3 Website Redesign Case Studies We Love

To give you food for thought, here are three website projects with three very different requirements. We hope you see yourself somewhere in these stories—and that you’re inspired to move your project forward.

NSBE: Reconnecting with Members First

One of the largest student-governed organizations in the world, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), is approaching their 50-year anniversary.

In preparation, NSBE is modernizing their online presence to better serve their members and extended communities. The executive team understood that redesigning the website was a significant technical project, so they began the planning process well in advance of the anniversary.

But they also recognized that they couldn’t jump into the technical details right away. Over the decades, NSBE’s mission has remained strong. And over time, the website had added content, programs, events, and pages—lots of pages.

Today, the student-governed organization has more than 600 chapters and 24,000 members serving multiple audiences in membership groups that include college students, K-12 students, and working professionals.

To reach their strategic goals and get meaningful value from the changes they would make, they needed to start with a deeper understanding of the people at the heart of their organization.

NSBE turned to Refactored for a research project that would bring their membership a clear voice in the evolution of the society and guide future marketing and website changes. Through close collaboration with their internal teams and interviews with stakeholders and members, we helped NSBE gain the information they needed to effectively map the journeys of all their diverse audiences—and inspire them to be part of NSBE’s mission.

The result is a redesigned website that is cleaner, clearer, and more compelling for all their audiences.

TaxAudit's website redesign showcased integrity as a differentiator

TaxAudit: Launching a New Service Offering

For TaxAudit, their reputation for personal connection and integrity is the key to their success. Their original service offering—tax audit prevention and guidance for people undergoing an audit—is highly specialized. Over more than 30 years, the company has become well known and respected in their space.

When they saw an opportunity to add a new service offering—helping people reduce and manage tax debt—they realized they’d need to reposition their company in the market. Their existing site had been developed with a single-minded focus. And over time, it had outgrown its original navigation and content structure. A redesign was needed.

However, they weren’t looking for a full rip-and-replace website project. They needed to leverage their existing site and branding, but still:

Differentiate their two service lines
Elevate their value
Simplify conversions

TaxAudit website redesign incorporated two distinct service offerings

Most important, they aimed to stand out from their competition.

For this project, the starting point was a competitive and SEO audit. Refactored collaborated with their team, who were already making site-level SEO improvements for their existing service.

Integrating our research with TaxAudit’s existing strategy, we created a new website structure, design, and navigation that would give space to both sides of the business—while keeping their core message of integrity front and center.

Thoughtful attention to user experience (UX) design empowers visitors to quickly find the services and information they are seeking. And the addition of HubSpot sales enablement tools helps foster seamless follow-through, so customers feel they are connected to someone who has their best interests at heart.

U.S. Borax: Transforming a Value Story from the Ground Up

With a global presence and decades of research devoted to helping feed the world’s population, U.S. Borax should have been positioned as the clear leader in refined boron and the first choice for product manufacturers and agricultural organizations and growers around the world.

But their online presence was limited, and their value story buried in static PDFs and offsite materials. They needed a compelling online presence that would differentiate them, demonstrating tangible value in a commodity-minded market.

Because Rio Tinto wasn’t initially prepared to redesign the entire U.S. Borax website, we proposed elevating a strategic market segment: agriculture. An agriculture microsite would enable U.S. Borax to speak directly to customers with content centered around their critical needs: increased yield, healthier crops, and a thriving agricultural industry.

Their online transformation started with a deep dive into a vast treasure trove of research, field studies, crop guides, product details, technical expertise, and personal knowledge. From these resources, we built a rich, engaging site framework that engages visitors with interactive crop guides, infographics, a value-in-use calculator, product application guidelines, videos, and field research studies.

Now, the knowledge of a half-century—previously buried—was visible, searchable, and useful. The results were transformative. And the dramatic ROI of the project enabled U.S. Borax to gain Rio Tinto’s support for subsequent initiatives, including the redesign of their full corporate site.

Storyblok CMS gives control to content editors with their Visual Editor feature

Care and feeding of your redesigned website

Here’s one more thing to keep in mind: websites aren’t static.

At least modern websites aren’t. They need to be able to adapt and scale with your organization.

For example, Rio Tinto and U.S. Borax have built a long-term relationship with us, and we support them as they continue to evolve both their corporate and agriculture sites. Over time, they’ve refined their user experience and moved from a consumer perspective to showcase value to their primary buyers: manufacturers, product makers, and growers.

This ongoing site evolution is empowered by modern tools—such as Storyblok headless CMS—that give more control to your teams as the needs of your organization and customers change.

What Should Your Priorities Be for Your Website Redesign?

Tell a better story. Build a better site. Generate greater demand.

When you're ready for a new website, you need more than just a cosmetic uplift. More than a template. More than a fresh logo.

When managed well, your website is:

The place to showcase your value and impact
The hub of engagement for customers, prospects, salespeople, and staff
Your greatest source of conversions
The integration point for all your technology tools
The space where you develop customer-focused solutions

A thoughtful, strategic approach will help to ensure that your project covers all your needs—and empowers your teams instead of forcing them to “work around” ongoing issues.

Yes, that might be a substantial project.

But just imagine how it could change the way you manage your digital presence.

Ready for a Website Redesign? Three Examples to Inspire You for Change