Who is your audience? What do they want?
Answer those questions before you do anything else, no matter what you are writing, designing, coding or building.
Great website design requires easy usability and polished appearance. But the words on your site are a crucial piece of your communications. This may be the first place many people encounter your business. Choosing the right tone is pivotal. In this case, both the way your content is written and how it is structured on the page will create the overall effect.
Photo by Clemens Löcker
Think of how people tend to react to user agreements. They are long and full of legalese, and as a result, most people skip them or skim them. Don’t let this happen to your website.
Choose your vocabulary with this in mind, and divide text up into clearly labeled sections. A website is not a novel, even if its purpose is promoting a novel. While you may have secondary pages with long passages, such as news articles, your initial landing page needs to quickly and clearly lay out the sections of your site.
Remember, viewers are going to access your page on desktops, laptops and mobile devices. In addition to a mobile-responsive website, a clear layout is integral to mobile usability.
Before you get too creative, make sure areas of the site that users are likely to look for are clearly labeled, in a way people will expect. Some typical pages that should be easy to find from any part of your site: “About,” “Contact Us” and “Home.” Depending on your business, you may want to add “Frequently Asked Questions” or “FAQs” to that list.
Once these basics are in place, you can start working on the core of your messaging.
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Part two: develop the voice of your communications on your website.
