You’ve probably heard stories from a few friends about their Web site not turning out as expected. There are various reasons as to why some people’s expectations aren’t met. In many instances, it’s due to inadequate content preparation and being unable to effectively communicate your vision to your web designer.
Putting Web site content before design; I’ll admit the concept used to sound a little foreign to me. I have more of a “just get it done” attitude. However, after being thrust into the position of a Web site designer and planner, I’ve found that content writing and planning is a crucial initial task.
Web site content is nothing more than plain ol’ words tied together to make sentences, which then make paragraphs, and so on and so forth. Seems simple enough, but it’s the number one critical element that stalls a project.
The goal is to write copy that matches the type of site you want to develop. This is typically based on your target audience, type of service you offer and sometimes budget. Here are a few tips on how to overcome the hurdle of putting together content for your Web site.
Informational: Basic Site
These types of sites basically provide online information to your clients or future customers about your brick-and-mortar business. Informational sites typically contain an array of pages such as: home, about us, gallery, services, contact, etc.
This concise Web site should showcase your business. The copy should be easy to scan and read and get more in-depth/technical only where it needs to be. People are viewing this site for basic information about you. Provide that for them, and then make it easy for them to contact you and find your real-world location.
Sales Generator: Sales Prospecting Site or Resource Site
With this type of Web site, your goal is to generate new sales and to use it as a major part of your advertising strategy. Writing content for this type of Web site will require a bit more commitment than a smaller static/rarely updated Web site.
The long-term goal of this site is to generate traffic to your site and increase your online presence. Writing keyword rich content is a must so that search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo find and index your Web site appropriately. You will also want to have some sort of system in place to allow you to add fresh content to your site over time. Keeping the content on your site updated and fresh will attract visitors looking for the most recent information available.
Online Store: E-commerce
Writing content for an online store requires mixing keyword rich content with great sales messages. The keyword rich content will help to drive traffic to your site and the sales messages built into the content will get them to purchase your products.
Think about “key words or phrases” that you type in Google to find specific products or services. These are the words you want to work into your copy. Write about your products and why your products are better than the competition’s products. Write about how your products benefit your potential customers. Keep the content sales driven and think about cross selling products.
Help Your Web Designer Understand Your Vision
So, here we are. You’re ready to take the plunge and develop a Web site. You know your business and products better than anybody else, so put it into words and visuals (photos).
Once you have a good bulk of information and graphics (content), you’ll be able to start organizing your Web site. Gather all this content and start to break it all up into what would represent individual Web pages. What content will go where on your site? How do you convey your plan to your Web designer?
Here are a couple of suggested methods:
1. Cut and paste pieces of paper with your photo choices and copy together. Seems like a child’s art project but what the heck, some people are visual. This is actually a great way to lay out a Web site. It will look like a “collage”, but the main point is to show your Web designer what will go where on each page.
2. Use software such as Microsoft Word to layout the page content and visuals you’ve selected. This can be done similar to the collage suggestion. The main objective is to organize each Web site page into one file on your desktop. That way the Web designer can “cut and paste” the pre-approved text and photos.
3. You can even take the last suggestion a step further and create a folder structure that represents the page structure on your site. Each folder represents a Web site page. Within that folder, put all page copy and graphics that you want to have on that page. This makes it easy for the Web designer to understand what content and graphics go on each page, and keeps the entire Web site content package organized.
Feeling Overwhelmed?
Are you intimidated by the idea of putting together all the copy and content for your Web site? A final suggestion to those intimidated by this process is to JUST DO IT! Don’t think so hard about it and just start writing down ideas. Your Web designer will be much happier to receive a pile of information from you that needs to be organized and polished than receiving absolutely nothing from you.
With the fast-paced world we live in, you may not have time to put together your content, but you also can’t afford to not get your business online TODAY. If tackling the content of your Web site is still too much of a task for you, ask your Web designer about content writing services. Most Web design and development firms have them available.
Mark Huesman is creative director at Absolute Marketing Group of Moorhead. For more information, feel free to contact Mark at 218-284-1111 or mark@absolutemg.com.