Your website is a real online showcase: it embodies your brand image at a crucial moment in the user journey: when they need you! It is therefore crucial to take care of this brand image, both in terms of design and technology—because, let's face it, no one wants to wait five seconds for a page to load on their phone!

No need to do everything yourself (for those who would like to, we have a few recommendations!). For everyone else, find out how to choose the right service provider to redesign such a strategic website and discover 15 key criteria to help you make the right choice and avoid ending up with a website that is “pretty but useless.”

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1. Are your goals clear?

A shopping center's website is no longer just a showcase: it is a tool for attracting visitors, promoting image, building loyalty, and managing local marketing. By 2025, it will need to meet specific requirements: it must be well-referenced, fast, connected to your events, capable of promoting brands... and above all, easy to maintain.

Start by choosing your main goal. Would you like to:

• Generate foot traffic? Better promote your brands?
• Develop your brand image?
• Be the top result for “shopping center” on Google in your city?
• Promote events and special offers?
• Promote your gift card? Your loyalty program?

Write down 1 main objective + 2 secondary objectives. This forms the basis of the specifications.

2. Is the service provider familiar with the world of shopping malls?

• Does he have references in the specific sector of shopping centers?
• Does he understand the challenges of your schedule, events, and merchandising mix?

Don't train your service provider on your business: choose one that already masters it and knows your audience well.

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3. Does he manage design, content, and technology all at once?

• Does it offer comprehensive generic support or is it specialized?
• Does the person who will be creating your website have a developer or marketing agency profile?
• Or will you have to manage multiple service providers?

Choose an agency with a “developer” profile rather than a marketing one, to avoid being tied to your agency and to ensure the quality of technical SEO (loading speed, 404 errors, indexing, etc.). Content is another matter, and after comparing all the formats, you are clearly the best at that!

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4. Are you captive to every change?

Overall, avoid being tied down by a customized back-end, tailor-made websites, etc. Choose simplicity: a good Webflow template installed by a technical optimization professional, and write the content yourself using a tool (we're not saying this because we offer one at Yourban, of course!).

A successful website is one that is used on a daily basis.

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5. Is the UX designed for your target audience?

UX = User Experience. In short: will it take three hours for the pages to load? Does the screen jump around? Is the text readable on mobile devices, computers, and tablets? These are all questions that must be answered with great care!

Here is our mini to-do list to check with your service provider:

• Smooth mobile navigation?
• Highlighting opening hours, services, parking, events?
• Promotion of brands and special offers in two clicks or less?
• Does the site have a blog section? With different categories (center openings/news, special offers, events, etc.)?
• Does the site have a B2B section for brands wishing to set up shop there?
• Does the site have a map?

A shopping center website is a tool for attracting visitors. The UX must focus on the essential: getting people to visit!

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6. Is he willing to let you take charge of local SEO?

The problem with branding is that no one knows it better than you. Avoid using service providers to write taglines, texts, etc. for you. Use AI tools such as yourban.ai to fuel your ideas while optimizing texts for SEO. Only you know the direction you want to take your center, and no AI can replace that!

A website without local Google traffic = an invisible website. A generic website = no differentiation.

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7. Is the design customized or standardized?

Don't bother with a custom design. Not only do you risk becoming captive and having to ask your service provider for every minor change, but your service provider will probably end up buying a $40 template.

So be upfront about it: a good service provider will show you templates that can be duplicated to optimize both your time and theirs!

The identity of a center cannot be copied and pasted, but it can be inspired!

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8. How responsive/supportive are they?

• Will you have a dedicated project manager?
• Do they respond quickly?
• Do they understand the challenges you face in running a shopping center?

Choose agile teams that are ready to go the extra mile to help you, rather than rigid structures that will cost you more in maintenance.

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9. What maintenance is planned?

• Technical support?
• Security updates?
• Response time in case of bugs?

Request a clear SLA. A page that crashes on Saturday morning cannot wait until Monday.

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10. Does the center own its website?

• Access to DNS, CMS, hosting?
• Is the code open source or proprietary?

Don't lock yourself in. Stay in control of your tool.

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11. What is the estimated completion time?

• Clear overall schedule?
• Validation phases planned?

No website creation > 3 months. The final design must be ready within 1 month, work on the content must be done by the marketing teams as soon as the template has been chosen the following month, and you allow yourself 1 month for iterations before validation by the management committees.

A site that takes more than six months to launch = red flag! Once the site has been approved by a center, all you have to do is duplicate it and change the names and location information! Maintaining a consistent graphic charter is quite important.

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14. Can you easily modify the content? (images, videos, pages, FAQs, blog, etc.)

The center's operational staff will need to have control over content creation, as it is their news and information that will bring fresh content to your site (and Google loves that!). So give your teams control, while saving time on your processes and annual budgets. Content: it's up to you!

Then, of course, it needs to be measured, but that's what we are here for!

What cannot be measured cannot be improved.

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15. What do their current customers think?

• Check out two or three websites they have recently created.
• Contact one of their clients if necessary.

Nothing beats concrete feedback.

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Redesigning your shopping center's website is much more than just a technical project. It's a strategic lever for visibility, engagement, and foot traffic. Choose a partner who understands your daily operations, your challenges, and your targets—and who will help you turn your website into a real driver of traffic.