Content is King. It’s a catchphrase that regularly gets tossed around in the digital space – and with good reason. All too often when developing a new website content is relegated to an afterthought – “we will figure out what goes in there once it’s been developed.” Failing to address content at an early stage can actually jeopardise the success of your entire project.
Well-structured content is the most important element in the ability of your new website to attract and engage visitors for conversion and lead generation. Content should be planned before or at the same time as the website’s functional design to help ensure that the final product meets your visitors’ needs. If it doesn’t meet those needs then it won’t meet your business’s needs either.
Investing from the start of project into the planning of your content will prove invaluable. The content planning process helps to clarify:
- Your target audience
- What your visitors want and expect from your site
- What you want your visitors to do on your site (the call to action)
- What devices your visitors use to view your existing site
- The types of sites your target audience visits when they are online, including social media channels
- The content that already exists and what needs to be created or sourced
Failing to pre-plan your content can have a number of ramifications for the overall project including:
Design
The design of a new website is compromised when new content and features are introduced as afterthoughts. Unable to work as originally intended, your user’s experience is compromised and the original sleek design becomes a cluttered mess. Pre-planning content ensures that the design can fall into place.
Time frame
Discovering a critical piece of content hasn’t been included can cause significant delays to the development schedule, especially if the omitted content requires large amounts of development time. If your content isn’t ready by the end of development and there are no words or images to populate the site with you are ultimately delaying final testing and handover of your website.
Cost
Any extra development time naturally increases the overall cost of your project. No one ever likes to pay more than anticipated so planning your content in advance helps to ensure that the scope of your project is a realistic representation of the work to be done and therefore quoted accurately from the start.
Search Engine Optimisation
Your content directly impacts on your SEO efforts. Poor quality content leads to high bounce rates, poor lead generation and conversion rates. Your content should either answer a visitor’s immediate question(s) or take them on a well-planned journey of discovery that leads to a definite call to action that matches a business objective.
Brand Tonality
Not planning your content or hastily throwing something together when the website has been developed means that your content may not accurately reflect your brand.
Here at The Digital Embassy we have a team of experienced individuals who not only understand how to create and write the content you need but are also content strategy experts and brand guardians. We are people who understand user experience, brand tonality and how to deliver messages to your target markets in a way that reflects your brand essence and maintains consistency with your other communication channels.
We offer all of our clients the option of a Content Planning Workshop to ensure that your content is never an afterthought.
