The Bureau of Meteorology’s website revamp left frustrated Australians feeling hotter under the collar than a scorching summer’s day. As BoM continues to weather community backlash, SMEs can learn valuable lessons about how to refresh their own webpages without a digital disaster.

The Bureau’s website redevelopment created a storm on two fronts: the $96.5 million cost – far higher than the $4.1 million initially communicated – and the usability of the site itself. Key features were moved or buried, navigation became confusing and, crucially, prolific users such as farmers and emergency services found essential data harder to access. Launched during a period of severe weather, the redesign required a rapid rollback of key elements, highlighting the risks of a redesign that falls short of delivering practical value.

Don’t Lose Sight of Your Refresh Goals

The BoM said the upgrade was essential because its previous, decade-old site was highly vulnerable to cyber attack, unstable under peak weather traffic and couldn’t reliably deliver data on mobile devices.

But experts say SMEs don’t always have clear goals in mind when designing or redesigning their websites, other than a desire for something new. Before rethinking a website’s look, the advice is to get crystal clear on why you’re doing it and whether you really need it.

Are you trying to boost lead generation, reduce customer support costs or drive more sales? SME owners are encouraged to set measurable targets – such as increasing form submissions by 15 per cent or reducing common customer support queries –  and make those the basis for the redesign roadmap. Existing data like analytics, heat maps and customer feedback can be used to prioritise which features best align with business outcomes. 

Understand How Your Audience Uses Your Website

When thunderstorms were no longer showing up as red on the BoM radar, angry users saw red, and not because of a resistance to change. Farmers and emergency services, who relied on radar maps for safety and livelihoods, could no longer interpret the information.

The federal government’s Digital Experience Toolkit says power users – customers and staff who depend most heavily on a site – should guide the redesign. “Learn about your users,” it advises. “Watch how users do things now and what problems or barriers they face. This is called contextual qualitative research. It will help you to understand how the service you’re designing can meet user needs. Don’t rely on assumptions the business has made. It’s important to do your own research to understand the user journey.”

The advice is to audit your existing site to see which pages get the most traffic or highest engagement and don’t risk burying those in a push for a ‘fresh’ look. 

Busy Customers Can’t Wait So Prioritise Speed

The BoM website faced complaints that users were forced to spend long periods searching for the information they needed.

Businesses want customers to spend time on their websites, but not if it’s spent fruitlessly searching, or waiting for a page to load. Shopify research shows that fast-loading sites are 2.5 to 3 times more likely to convert visitors into customers than slower ones. If forced to wait more than 3 seconds, the chance of buyers leaving a site increases by 32 per cent.

To put this into practice, the advice is to:

• Make sure your site loads quickly on both desktop and mobile.
• Keep the layout simple and easy to navigate so visitors can find what they need without effort.
• Place calls to action like “Get a Quote,” “Contact Us,” or “Book Now” in obvious spots to guide users.
  

Re-launch Day Is The Beginning, Not the End

The day a new-look website goes live is not the end of the project for an SME: it’s Day 1, as its worth is measured. Owners are advised to monitor where users drop off, which pages perform poorly and whether goals are being met. Regular reviews of visitor behaviour – bounce, or leaving, rates, return visits, navigation paths – will provide vital data, while Google Analytics can highlight performance trends.

In response to feedback, BoM has repealed some unpopular features, such as the radar map changes, and promised it’s still listening. “I totally accept the Australian public did not all get what they wanted from the initial release of the website,” BoM CEO Dr Stuart Minchin told the ABC.

The Bureau’s experience shows that even well-resourced and well-meaning organisations can miss the mark when it comes to online communication. SMEs must keep customers’ needs front of mind to avoid their own flood of complaints.