Organisations often contact me when they’re getting a new website and want to freshen or expand their content at the same time.
Sometimes, the web design is done (or nearly done) and the content writer is the last person hired. These business could have saved money if they’d hired a content writer before the web designers.
When you’re getting a new website, here’s why you need content written before design.
1. Content writers help you understand your information hierarchy, and that impacts design
Many businesses aren’t communicating with customers as effectively as they could because over time, their information hierarchy has turned upside down. Answers to customers’ most basic questions (What is this organization / product? Who is it for? What does it do?) have become buried in more complicated, nuanced issues.
Content writers can show you where those key messages have fallen down, giving you insight that will impact design choices.
2. Content writers can suggest ways to use design to support key messages
Writers understand how style elements influence how people read. Some content will need things like feature boxes, pull quotes, within-page navigation and a range of subheading styles, to name a few examples. What you need will depend on your content, and if you haven’t written your content first, you’ll be relying on your design agency to guess what you’ll need.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
3. Content writers can help you avoid expensive design traps
I was once hired to write an organisation’s content after they’d bought an expensive, all-bells-and-whistles new website. When they proudly showed it to me, there was sudden silence when I explained some of the features they’d paid a lot for, like autoplay video headers, tend to disengage audiences.
“Why didn’t our web designers tell us?” They asked.
There are several potential reasons:
- Businesses are usually willing to pay more for ‘snazzy’ features like auto-play videos and animations, so there’s a financial incentive for design companies to promote these to you, even if they’re likely to harm your results.
- Sometimes web designers don’t know about the engagement problems these features create, as they’re usually not involved in analysing site conversion. They probably haven’t seen that whenever you switch the animations and videos off, conversions shoot up.
A content specialist can advise you on which design elements to avoid and we have no vested interest in selling you expensive bells-and-whistles you don’t need. (Hint: Avoid anything that moves automatically on a website, like carousels, animations and embedded autoplay videos. They are usually counterproductive.)
Content before design, but research before content
I’ve just said write content before having a new website designed, but content writing isn’t the best first step to a new website.
First comes user research: Learning more about your audience (including those you’re not yet reaching,) what you’re doing today that works well and where you need to improve. This insight will help you create successful web content and design.