Know-How Exchange : Other

cwbysfan1,

There are two approaches. One is totally with copy in mind the other is with design in mind. What I've found though is the best websites have a strong intergration of both great web design and great copy.

In the content motivated website a lot of people are focusing more on copy. In the more arts related websites you'll see more design and flash.

Just get on the web and look at websites of artist and people in the music entertainment industry and you'll see what I'm saying. Analyze, examine and review this with websites of people in the financial/ banking industry and you'll see more copy directed websites.

Personally I'm all for writing down things first. This is because when we begin with pencil and paper, rough sketches and notes our ideas can be refined. It's like starting a business without (at least) a sketch of an idea for a business plan. How do you know where you're going if you don't know where you been? Writing it down helps you to know where you've been.

Cowboys Fan, Whatever you do whenever you do your website just remember...do it from your heart. My grandmother used to say "What comes from the heart, reaches the heart". This is the unique part of you and what gives your ideas your own personal signature.

I say Refine/Design,
brings wealth in time.

I hope I 've helped you. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE

Cowboy Scott, a good web designer should give you more than an appealing look-n-feel; she should offer you a workable structure with room to grow and expand the content. As you've already read here, the outline of the site content is integral with design. The actual copy comes later, although you might have big chunks of it you can reuse from existing printed collateral.

The only thing I can add to the valuable advice you've received here already: Don't stall the launch of an important website because all of the content/copy isn't ready. Get your designer to help you plan for staged releases, and plan for testing visitor traffic patterns along the way. Good content management tools will help if you want to update the copy frequently, too.

Keep it human, friendly, and usable! Good luck.

- Texas Shelley

The best way to approach a web designer is to sneak up behind them, throw a wet blanket over their head and beat 'em with a baseballl bat until they stop blabbering about how design is important because it reflects the brand of the business.

Take their proposed cost and cut it in half. Threaten to send the work to India. Use a pre-built template. Save all your money for Google ads to promote your website. Write your content on the back of a napkin and sketch out your website design on your brown bag lunch. Make sure you use an email newsletter to annoy your subscribers as much as possible. NEVER update the site.

Cowboys. Ha !

Write all your content first. Then if you decide you still want a website, (after you realize how hard it is to write GOOD content), contact a web designer to convert it all to HTML. Put it online so the search engines will crawl your content. Then discuss who your website visitors are and how they will use the website, to come up with a useable design. Then when all the design is done, do your usability testing by observing 5 of your typical customers trying to use your website. After you interview them as to what they got out of the pages they visited, re-write your content to better achieve your goals, re-design the website navigation to make it easier to find things, and increase your keyword density and link popularity to improve your search engine positioning. Test it all again with a mixture of new and the same testers. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It's a long term commitment. Meet the parents early in the relationship. Know what you're getting into. Don't say nobody told you.

cwbysfan1,

Good thoughts here by all. Here's my two cents:

There are great sites with wonderful copy and great sites with wonderful graphics. But "Look and Feel" is purely the 'driving experience'. Some can be like going to a classy French restaurant when you're starving (may look good, but you'll still be starving when you leave).

Michele is dead on. Get your strategy down cold first. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Then write it up. Short, sweet, to the point. Then get the Web designer to package it effectively and attractively.