Design for Your Content

By Sam Roberts - Website Copywriter, Internet Researcher and Advertising CopywriterWhy design owing to your content?

I remember putting together my first website - when I was about 14 - and how long unfeigned took me to get the design true right.  I planned substantial all carefully in my head, rush out all the pages I thought a city should have (Main, About Me, Pictures and Links!).  I even drew out a sitemap on paper, to enter on sure everything was perfect!
Then I painstakingly taught myself .html (this was back influence the days before WYSIWYG editors were around), further drew out each .jpg from scratch.  unfeigned took me distant weeks, but eventually the site was finished.  All I fundamental to do was to author the content to fill it. de facto was only then that I realised that I didn't have a single affair I fundamental to say.

I designed my second website when I was connections striking School, and it was a wide additional hard affair.  I made a page for each of my friends, and filled essential suppress things I knew would make them vagary. The home page was little additional than a guide of links, because I principal people to stand for able to find their pages easily. The beget flowed naturally from the content, also unlike my first website, this one was a huge success.  Because I had written undoubted with my audience in mind, rather than problem to correct the delight around the design, it was more accessible, and folks took the circumstance to get across stable.  As a result, the site became very popular, also people placid talk about stable now, even though the place has been offline for years.

Both of my sites were very basic, amateur efforts, but the agency applies equally no matter what size the site.  author is important, but euphoria is king.  The web is a communication medium - if you publish pressing online, you obviously buy something you want to say, further you cannot bestow to let your speech symbolize overshadowed by your flashy new website.  You need to learn to design for your content.

The most important stereotype of your website is the content itself.  You have something to say, and you must make sure you say it, or all your trial has been wasted.  But there's no point in just regurgitating a few paragraphs of marketing contribute - web users are surprisingly savvy, and they can see being that in an instant; an instant in which they will have hit the back button and moved on down the list of search results.

You need to boast over what people are looking for, and give it to them.

Do some scrutinize; presume true about which terms you would use to search if you wanted to buy your product, and then once-over them progression.  hold a scrutiny at who your competitors are, further what they are doing.  Research on Wordtracker and see if there are any other keywords you could try.

Then benefit your impression. Think about why people might be looking thanks to your product and autograph for them.  If your volume advertises a skiing hotel in Switzerland, don't belonging sell for 'hotels in Switzerland', establish useful articles about skiing, further then atom them to your hotel in the middle of a ski resort.

When you know what content you require, you cupidity to write stable.  The key to this is that it must perform written entirely - you want connections to read it and find the instruction useful.  There's a gang of filth out there, and if folks find a genuinely useful article they will remember it and come forward for more.  With that in mind, here are a few ideas for writing better content:Write distinctly. create succinctly.  People reach turned off by oversize blocks of text, for sustenance sensible as short and delish as possible. Don't feel you have to explain every little thing, but don't presume that your readers know everything that you do.  If they did, they wouldn't be reading your article. Use references to strengthen your arguments, and link to sources spot people can get further information. Don't be afraid to dovetail to sites other than your own. It will only institute people trust you fresh. report as yourself.  It's the web; you guilt further should be stereotyped.  People like feeling that they are listening to a real human being.  However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't gravy train correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Don't overuse colloquialisms - not everybody is from the consistent crown as you, besides it's yielding for things to get lost in translation. construct for simplify of use

People don't groove on itemizing thanks to immensely text on a keep secret now on a page.  Therefore, you ought effect things easy for them.  Design your website to complement besides upgrade the text, and be careful not to overwhelm evident with reliance menus and images that distract your readers from the important stuff: your content.

Split the text into easily digestible chunks; use short paragraphs made up of elliptical sentences. Give each topic its concede separate page if it makes things easier to read.  Five concise pages are better than single single sprawling mass of text.

Use bullet points and lists to establish things simpler.  Emphasise capital things using attack tags or bold to effect them stand out.  Basically, venture to schism things up as much as possible into smaller sections that people leave be more inclined to read.Design now accessibility

Not everybody who uses the web can see perfectly.  Some are visually burned; others may comparable be blind. Yet they are still quite competent of using the Internet, provided that web designers follow a few yielding rules to set up things easier for them.Fonts should be resizable - it is tempting to restrict fonts to a specific size magnetism order to preserve your design, but unaffected is central that you concur users to choose for themselves. know stuff are a huge inject of articles on the web about creating layouts that will respond dynamically to changes sway words size.Many visually struck folks use screen-readers to navigate the lattice - one shot way imprint which you can improve their phenomenon of your site is to enter upon incontrovertible you use proper .html, improving the accuracy of the screen-reader. Don't use images to as a source of information, but to enhance the information given in the text.  Ideally, your site should motion just as well with images off. shot slant your spot duck a text only browser, such as Lynx, to perfect an idea of how original will equal seen by a screen-reader. Make sure you make good use of your conceit alt tags. give a concise description of the image contents. If you include a organization of your site's meta keywords, you will succour your SEO highly.
You appetite to enter on sure that everybody can road and view your content, and that irrefutable looks the same on everybody's computer.  That means testing.  Get as many people as you trust to test out your volume in different browsers, different resolutions, and different platforms.  Make sure bona fide commotion in the same path in all of them.


As with my first site, if you emphasise design over content, your users will get bored and move on, and your site commit sink shlep into anonymity. By following the suggestions in this article, your website consign reproduce rejuvenated, again your content will bring off a chance to shine. People will read what you have to say.  If they luxuriate in what they hear, they'll come guide again and again…