Creating website content before you start your website project is a must. Content is king not only for your website users but also for search engine optimization and getting your website found and ranking online.
Content-first is something you might have heard about before if you have ever worked in the digital sphere or been around a digital agency. It represents one of the philosophical perspectives on the whole design process. It was advocated Jeff Zeldman in 2008 and it states that “in order to build the right design for any given project, you have to know what the content is before you start designing”.
At its core, your new website should be built to deliver a message, what service or product you have to offer and the design of the website exists to support your content, the design of your new website should follow substance.
You might have come across a badly designed site and be wondering if any planning went into them. The answer is yes, but probably not enough. We are website designers & digital specialists, we know our industry well from years of work. We are not doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc and we often do not know enough about our client’s particular industry to understand the message that our clients what to portray on there website, we rely on them to give us detailed content so we can translate that into great design that complements there message or story. We often face the problem of clients that have an idea of a website but not a well thought out content plan of what story they want that website to tell.
A content-first approach to website design is the equivalent of planning out a book getting the words on paper (We prefer MS Word documents as typesetting might cost you extra). Once you give us the story, we can design the book, the art, the typography and the layout. Content comes first, you don’t start with the typography and art and then work backwards to create a best seller.
Creating your website content prior to the start of your website design can avoid endless rounds of back and forth. Too often when a design starts without content, the web development regresses into an endless message between the designer and website client.
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Content should be a top priority when talking about ranking in Google for your website. Content is how you engage your prospective buyers and how Google understands your website.
Here a few tips on how you can write quality content to help your website rank higher in Google Search.
- There is a big value in answering your clients’ questions on your pages before they even ask for them. You’re crafting content designed to meet your audiences’ needs. Search engines such as Google want to show direct answers in the search results. If in your website content you answer questions that your clients could be asking about your industry, your page may be displayed as a featured item result on Google, therefore, translating into a potential sale and key indicator to Google that your website is valuable to its users.
- Don’t try to be link everyone else, wright up your own original content. Your website content should be new and original. It has to be different from all the websites, blog posts and articles that are already on the internet. Google loves fresh new content and it knows when content has been copied from other websites pushing your website lower in the ranks or at the very harshest not showing your website in search at all.
- Content content content. One-liners and a few sentences are not going to make for a great website, We are not saying you should blabber on about anything just for the sake of filling up a page but the more quality information you can provide to your users the higher chance you will have of being noticed, referred and ultimately getting that website traffic flowing to your website.
