On Your Website Content

Whether you are thinking of creating a new website or revamping your old one, you have to think content before you think design. Website content is the starting point. Remember this rule, because it cannot get simpler than this.

It is all about the user and what she/he is interested in. Unless your website is with a graphical focus, you are bound to create an engaging mixture of visual and textual bytes that entice the target and make it stay on your Internet real estate longer. And since the World Wide Web is the most populated area on this planet, you are competing big time for the user’s attention.

I am often asked to help with creating a new website or revamping a new one. For many of these projects, my “clients” think the first design and later about content. I find myself repeating the same question over and over again – “Do you have your content ready: text, key visuals, and so on?” And in most cases, I get – “No”. However, they can list affordable UK based website designers and prices of the top of their heads…

Content is the framework of your website – its foundation and pillars. You arrange the walls and separations based on what you’ve got as material and how much space you need in each room/section. You build your house based on certain conditions at hand – terrain, environmental consideration, available materials, necessities, purpose, functionalities, etc. Now replace the word “house” with “website”. Get the point?

Five simple rules when you start shopping around for a web designer:

Create a blueprint of how the text, pictures, and other visuals are grouped together what lies where and how!
Have your text, picture, and other visuals ready before you head off. These are the bricks, cement, wood, and thousands of other building materials for your house.
Think of what makes sense for your visitors, not you. You want the user to know you a bit or more. Don’t expect her/him to know everything you do!
A web design should be minimal, i.e. just fast enough to accommodate your furniture arranged in a Feng Shui way. Scalability is a real thing, but you can always take a wall down and add another room.
Prepare yourself to be flexible! Sometimes the material you want is not sold anymore due to the new environmental guidelines the government has set up…

If you keep these five simple rules, I can assure you that your new house will be one of the prettiest once in the neighborhood, if not the best.