Web Design Written Content - It's not just page filler anymore

Where is the Focus?

Quite possibly the most overlooked aspect by web designers. Written content is what sells your business. Why is it so overlooked? Because it is time consuming and difficult to do, therefore, nobody wants to do it. Written content places a focus on your business and conveys the message you want to send.Girl signifies focus

This is where you need to grab your visitors and make something stick in their mind while they are narrowing their search for services or goods. Think about what makes you not like the others. This is where the focus should be.

Chances are your competitors are going to push price. Fine. That bodes well for you. If you offer the same services, use the same ingredients, build the same way, then a visitor will quite possibly search for a better price. Something needs to set you apart. You need to offer something your competitors don't.

However.....

The old saying,"You get what you pay for", is a basic concept consumers know about, and more times than not, will go for a middle ground. If it's too cheap, then it isn't quality. If it's too expensive, then it's a rip off. Value for money, can be your focus. What are you giving for the price you are asking. What do you do better than the other guy for what they are charging.

 

Get to the point

Where's Waldo PosterRemember the "Where's Waldo" posters? It's where you had to find this popular character in a very busy picture. More times than not it would take quite some time to find Waldo. It was fun to look though.

It's not so fun to have to search a confusing, cluttered site for what you desire. Your biggest pitch should on the top of the home page in the initial viewport. In other words, when the home page loads, visitors should have something compelling to look at without navigating or even scrolling the page. Gotta hook 'em fast.

Not keyword stuffing

Allow me to quote an anonymous web designer:

"Make sure you put a bunch of keywords in some text because search engines like that"

Pepper shaker

Oh boy, where do I start? Pepper your content with keywords? It will come automatically. While it is true that your content should contain keywords related to your business, it's not what is going to sell anything once people get there. This is typical narrow minded thinking. If you write content which portrays your business as being better than your nearest enemy, stronger than your nearest enemy, and faster than your nearest enemy, then viola! your keywords will already be there!

"The word content holds absolutely zero expectation for outcome. Promising exactly nothing, content need not perform to a level of quality or effectiveness. All content need do is fill a container. Perfect if you don’t want to take attention off the technology making up the container. A serious problem if you ever expect to connect technology to business objectives."

John Soellner, Design Crux

Generally real estate is valuable. Space is valuable. We don't waste the real estate space on a site.

 

Moral of the story

Little guy showing handWritten content is really one area that other designers will not do, nor will they persuade their client to do either. Content are the bones of the body of the site. Without it, the whole purpose and objective of the site will collapse. This could be labeled marketing failure.