Designing empty boxes and deciding what to put inside them afterwards is a surprisingly common way to build websites.
It is also backwards.
Content affects layout.
A page explaining one straightforward service needs a different structure from a complex service involving several audiences, case studies and frequently asked questions.
Start with the message.
Then design the best way to communicate it.
Begin with customer questions
Before writing marketing copy, list the questions customers repeatedly ask.
They are incredibly valuable.
If customers ask those questions during sales conversations, future customers are probably searching for the answers too.
Map search intent to pages
Avoid forcing ten unrelated services onto one enormous page.
Ask what someone might actually search for.
For example, somebody looking for:
- website redesign
- WordPress development
- ecommerce development
- bespoke business software
has four different intentions.
Each deserves enough focused content to answer it properly.
Decide what each page is supposed to achieve
Every page needs a job.
A service page may generate an enquiry.
A case study may build confidence.
A blog article may attract somebody at an earlier research stage.
A contact page should remove friction.
Knowing the objective makes writing considerably easier.
Create the hierarchy first
For each page, establish:
- the main message
- supporting benefits
- evidence
- detailed information
- next action.
Now design has something useful to work with.
Write for humans first
SEO matters.
But stuffing phrases into paragraphs until they sound like a satnav reading a keyword spreadsheet is not optimisation.
Use the terminology customers genuinely use.
Explain the subject properly.
Structure information clearly.
Then refine headings, titles, internal links and metadata.
Plan images alongside text
“Add picture here” isn't much of a photography brief.
Identify where real images could provide evidence:
- completed work
- team members
- process
- products
- premises
- installations
- screenshots.
Don't duplicate pages for SEO
Creating twelve near-identical pages with a town name changed in each one doesn't make the website twelve times more useful.
Local pages should contain genuinely relevant local information.
Likewise, service pages should have distinct search purposes.
Content-first doesn't mean design-second
Design and content should develop together.
The point is simply that visual decisions should be informed by what needs communicating.
Beautiful websites attract attention.
Clear websites turn that attention into action.
The best websites manage both.
Strategy. Creativity. Technology.
