Website ABCs >
6) Basic Content
People buy from people. When websites first started trending in the mid 1990s, it was a trip. They were simple and cartoonish, and you could get the gist of a personality from a personally done website. This day in age most sites look so formal or professional that it can scare away the common man (or woman). If you are selling Ferraris, you better have the best website money can buy, but if you are in the business of buying and selling products or services for the common person, makes sure the website fits those needs first. Most designers over shoot the mark and they over complicate things to the point that your website is often times subtly detracting from your own success.
If you allow another to write your content, and they have only sales or marketing in mind while you have only profit in mind, you end up marketing something you can't deliver on. And this day in age, with online review systems, that is a much more dangerous proposition than it was years ago when the greatest complaint resource a consumer had was the Better Business Bureau.
You do not need to be in your website builder to create basic written content. If you are even a mediocre writer you need to learn to provide the foundation for all of your own website content. Open a Google Drive Document, add some paragraph titles that correlate to pages you will have on your website and start typing. Attempt to express what you think and what you feel. You will not become a better writer without practicing writing. You can also do this by opening a new email in gmail -- and just typing. Give that email a relevant subject and then close that email and it will be stored as an email draft you can return to.
Use the websites of your competitors and others to get an idea of what you want to say or how you want to present it. If they all have fancy stuff on their website, ask yourself to what level that really adds value. If it is tremendous, put a price tag on it and see if you can find someone to help you do that in an environment you control as opposed to paying someone to do that for you in an environment that is outside of your control.
Navigation design, content grouping beyond 4 or 5 pages, and color selection is an art. If you are not good at these items seek help on these items. Just keep adding content and keep building a prioritized list of your goals and desires for your website, and find someone who can help you group everything in a manner that flows on a website platform that you can control to some degree.
If you allow another to write your content, and they have only sales or marketing in mind while you have only profit in mind, you end up marketing something you can't deliver on. And this day in age, with online review systems, that is a much more dangerous proposition than it was years ago when the greatest complaint resource a consumer had was the Better Business Bureau.
You do not need to be in your website builder to create basic written content. If you are even a mediocre writer you need to learn to provide the foundation for all of your own website content. Open a Google Drive Document, add some paragraph titles that correlate to pages you will have on your website and start typing. Attempt to express what you think and what you feel. You will not become a better writer without practicing writing. You can also do this by opening a new email in gmail -- and just typing. Give that email a relevant subject and then close that email and it will be stored as an email draft you can return to.
Use the websites of your competitors and others to get an idea of what you want to say or how you want to present it. If they all have fancy stuff on their website, ask yourself to what level that really adds value. If it is tremendous, put a price tag on it and see if you can find someone to help you do that in an environment you control as opposed to paying someone to do that for you in an environment that is outside of your control.
Navigation design, content grouping beyond 4 or 5 pages, and color selection is an art. If you are not good at these items seek help on these items. Just keep adding content and keep building a prioritized list of your goals and desires for your website, and find someone who can help you group everything in a manner that flows on a website platform that you can control to some degree.