Which should come first, a website’s content or its design? It’s one of those chicken-and-egg things and different people will give you different answers.
Some people choose content first. So the design of a site is built around the content to show it off at its best.
Others prefer to see the design first, so they know what and how much they need to write.
For me, content should always come first. That might sound strange coming from a designer. Like I think content is more important than design.
Honestly? I believe neither is more important. They need to work together. A perfect partnership of words and style.
[Tweet “Content & design need to work together in a perfect partnership of words and style”]
Avoid Communication Breakdown with a content-first approach
You see, design is about communication. And if there’s nothing to communicate – ie no content – then the design is just decoration. It might look pretty but does it work? Will it drive website users towards making a purchase or downloading your lead magnet?
Maybe… Maybe not… It’s hard to say when you’re working with Lorem Ipsum (that’s standard dummy text designers use as a placeholder when there’s no real content available to work with). You just have to make an educated guess and hope for the best that once real content is added it’ll fit and work.
I prefer not to just hope for the best. I like to take a more strategic approach.
By designing around real content – the actual words that will be on the site – it’s much easier to say “I’ve done the design this way to highlight these important bits and drive people towards your contact page, so we can reach your goals of increasing the number of inquiries you’re getting”.
When you have a clear and definite reason behind designing something a certain way, you can more easily tell if it’s working or if it needs to be tweaked.
[Tweet “By designing around real content your site design can be much more strategic”]
Content-first saves you money
Another issue with the design-first approach is that you can have problems creating content to fit each part of the design.
If the design is too prescriptive, too rigid, then you might find yourself having to write a super-specific amount of text.
For example if a part of the design calls for 3 lines of text, that just might not work for you. What if that’s not enough room for you to get your point across? You might have to cut out valuable and important information.
Or what if it’s too long? You could start waffling just to fill the space and dilute your message.
If you start with the design, you have the choice of editing your content to fit the design or reworking your design to fit the content.
Your content is a huge part of your website’s strategy – ie what you want to achieve with your site. So if you go with the first option and have to start shoehorning text into a design then it’s way harder to keep that strategy in focus.
[Tweet “With a content-first approach, you don’t have to shoehorn text into a design”]
Or if you decide to change the design to fit the content, then you’re going to face additional design costs. You see, it may not be a simple few tweaks to rework the design; your designer may be looking at a lot of extra work to redo parts of the site that you previously signed off on and they’ll need you to pay for the extra work.
But if you start with the content, you avoid those extra design fees. Plus, your strategy for the site can stay front and centre throughout the whole process, so that your content and design can work together properly.
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Content and design in perfect harmony
Content and design need each other like a cake needs flour and eggs to rise properly. Miss one out and things just won’t be the same.
A well designed site will catch peoples’ attention then good content will keep them engaged so they want to buy from you or join your mailing list.
[Tweet “A well designed site will catch peoples’ attention then good content will keep them engaged so they want to buy from you or join your mailing list”]
That’s what I want for my clients, so that’s why I take the content-first approach. Design work only starts once the content is finalised so I know what I’m working with and can build a website to properly show off the content. If you’d like to get strategic and work together on your site, get in touch for a chat.
And if you’re struggling to write your content why not give my favourite copywriter a shout. She’s seriously good and will help you find the right words to connect with your audience. Remember to tell her I sent you!
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