When setting up a website, it will be more profitable for you on the whole if you prioritize getting good content down before you go into the nitty-gritty of what the site should look like. Most people spend too much time worrying about how the site looks and fail to give the same attention to the content of the website.
Advertisement experts recognize the value of quality content. It is best to get your message out to people in a clear way so that they can understand. In the ad world, ads are constructed around a central concept. This concept must be translatabled into language your customers can understand before you even begin to elaborate on it. Unfortunately, many people spend too much time on fancy designs and features when they move into online marketing tactics. This is reflected when customers visit websites seeking more information about a good or service of interest and find the sites useless.
Since this is such a basic principle of advertising, it is difficult to know why companies have not integrated the formula of great content/good design onto their websites immediately after creating them. The best designed website in the world will fall flat if its content is nonexistent or poorly written. Especially when pitted against an ad with simply “good” copywriting.
So, why invest more time and effort into your content before you have constructed your entire website? People are sophisticated. By throwing up a smokescreen of flashy design and empty content you are ultimately discrediting yourself and your product, as your customers will be able to see through the show to the lack of content within. When people are making decisions about items important to their lives, they like to feel as though websites have informed rather than entertained them.
Also, writing is a solid foundation for anything online. Your main mode of interaction with your website-browsing customer is the content he or she is reading online. Think about it: would you rather buy from a website with beautiful graphics that offers no real information? Or would you rather buy from a website with rather plain design but clear and thorough information about its wares? In this situation, it almost seems as though the ill-designed website practices modesty while the well-designed website compensates for something (Kizuri cha jiuza, kibaya chajitembeza). Whether this is true or not, a customer’s perception that he or she is on firm footing when making a decision is paramount.
If you are not comfortable writing your own content, it can be easily accomplished anyway. Writers are there for hiring, whether you want to add one permanently to your staff or hire freelancers from project to project. It is usually best to hire a writer to work with your art people, or to use the same freelancers on a consistent basis. You must find a writer who understands the voice you want to have in your copy and who is able to put ideas in a way that explains them exactly how you would like. This is not always quick or easy to find. It is worth the expense and search, however, to have someone who is aware of your organization’s current and future goals and who is familiar with your staff.
Content is King.
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