A beginners guide to better website content

Whenever we start a project, one of the first questions we have as a web design agency is who will be providing the content? The content for your website is near enough the single most important element for your project to be successful. Even the best designed website in the world can’t hide poorly written copy or low quality images.

When possible, it’s good to get a professional copywriter or photographer involved to help but budgets don’t always allow or you may want to attempt it in yourself.

With that in mind, we have put together a beginners guide to creating better website content.

Who is your audience?

As a business, rule number 1 is know your audience or more importantly, your customer. Keep them in mind when creating the content for your website. Gear it towards them. How do you appeal to them through your copy? Who are they, how old are they, where are they from, what is it they want and how can you solve their problem and provide value? Think about how you would speak to them if they were in front of you. Would you talk to them in a professional, corporate tone or more relaxed and informal? Your copywriting should reflect this.

Keep it concise, get to the point

Try to stay away from writing too much content. Keep things concise and to the point. Try to break up your content into smaller, bite size chunks so your customer can digest it more easily. Use things like bullet points where possible. You want the person reading your content to find out what they are looking for quickly and then make a decision as to whether they want to do business with you. Make this as easy as possible.

What is the aim of the website?

Think about what your intentions are for the website. Are you trying to sell a product through the site or is it to showcase some recent projects? Or it might be to simply gain trust? Once you know the aim of the site, you can work towards making all your content point in that direction. So you may concentrate on getting the user to the online store to make a purchase, there may be a simple form at the bottom of each page to sign up to a newsletter and collect their details or you might want to promote the case studies across the site and cross link them between pages.

Don’t forget about SEO

When writing content, don’t forget about the SEO side of things. Think about what you think your customers will be typing into Google to find your business. If you’re an estate agent for example they might search for phrases like ‘Estate Agent in Newcastle’ or ‘North East Estate Agents’. The aim is to make a big list of these and then try and get these keywords into your content in a natural way. Don’t force it but just keep it in mind when writing your content. If your website is built around WordPress, installing the plugin ‘Yoast SEO’ helps things too. We will be writing a blog post on using this tool so keep an eye on our blog over the next couple of weeks for more information.

Use Photography and Video

Finally, if you only have text copy on your website, it is going to end up looking a little bland. So don’t forget about the importance of photography and video. Now there are a few options with this depending on your budget. The best way by far is to invest in your own bespoke photography for your website. This will ensure that the imagery is shot especially for you and will likely include your premises, your brand, your people etc. and look much more authentic than any other option. It will also give the most professional image of your company and ultimately make you stand out.

If you are just starting out in your business, you could always ask someone you know that is a hobby photographer to help you out. This could keep your budget down whilst giving you a better outcome than if you were to try and take the photos yourself – unless of course you are a dab hand at photography.

Another option is to use free or paid for stock imagery. This involves looking through a library of online photos that you think could work well with your website. Generally, you won’t be able to find the perfect image for every situation but it’s a good option to keep a professional look and feel when you first start out.

We offer a full range of services to help with your website content from copywriting, photography, video and even social media. If you would like any help or advice with your websites content give us a call on 07882 791689 or email hello@debut.studio and we can chat about how we can help.