How to write website content and make sure your design works
Providing text and information to your website designer can be a tricky and a new experience for most. Here are some rough guidelines to make sure you get the most for your money and save time and energy for everyone involved.
1. Keep your text brief and to the point.
People don’t read long pieces of information on the web anymore. Thanks to Twitter, Google, Facebook and other services, people have the attention span of half a gold fish. Blogging is a huge exception. Blogs are not the same as targeted business websites.
A good rule of thumb is to have columns that are about 7 words wide and to keep your info to 3 paragraphs, or to bulleted point. The bullet system is even better since it gets to the point fast.
You can always include a “read more” link and make another page with your marathon document. Try to keep that short too though. Only the buyer who is burning to buy will read anything longer than a page of text and even that is pushing it.
2. Make sure you know what you want before the designer receives it.
Many website clients across the world tend to vaguely indicate content in the beginning of the project and start changing things once they get the first designs back.
The fact is that you are wasting your own time, energy and sometimes money by doing that. You are in fact also weakening your product.
The designer designs the site around the content you give him/her. If you add extra bits and pictures later it means the designer has to squish it into the previous design somewhere and, unless they billed you double, this will take a toll on your product. It is an exception if something was designed like a gallery, or blog which was intended to be expanded later.
Make sure your documents are proof-read and organised before handing them over. If a designer receives many e-mails asking to fix one word here and one word there the chances are that he/she will get it wrong and time and money will be wasted.
3. Keep photos to a reasonable amount.
No client is going to scroll through 50 photos. Make the images functional. The designer might help here, but provide the necessary tasteful images (not the ones your nephew took with his cell phone, unless he happens to be a professional) and make sure they all have a practical use. Sometimes some extra photos work nicely in a decorative bar at the bottom but there still needs to be a practical function for them.
Stick to these guidelines and you will certainly ensure a smoother project flow which will keep everyone smiling.
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Tags: designer, graphic designers, marketing, website content, writing content, writing website content
