How to Prepare Content for Your Website
So you’re ready for a website?
Hooray!
Time to celebrate!
Until you start thinking about all the stuff that needs to live on your site… you know - things like words, pictures, links, etc.
Where does all that stuff come from? Well unless you’ve hired a copywriter it’s going to come from you my friend!
Wait, wait, wait! I can see you wanting to slink away to the nearest dark corner and rethink all your choices. But there’s no need for that! You can absolutely prepare your own content!
“But isn’t this going to be too hard?
I’m not a writer after all!”
Well, the bad news is, you’re right on one account. In the beginning prepping your website content may indeed feel SUUUUPERR hard. But that’s ok! Why?
Well, for one thing it’s important, and for another thing no one knows your business better than you do. So who better for the job!
All right, I can feel you wondering “Hey, I thought this was an article on how to prepare content…” and you’re right! I AM going to explain how to gather all the bits and bobs you’ll need for your site. But first, let me give you some general guidelines.
I 100% recommend you write your content BEFORE you jump into designing your site. This might seem counterintuitive to you (it felt that way to me when I was first building my website!) but it’s still the best idea.
Writing your content first forces you to put some thought into the intent, purpose, and desired outcome of your website before you get distracted playing with fonts and color palettes and cool background graphics. (Trust me, you absolutely WILL get distracted with all the things!)
It also forces you to think about your ideal client and put yourself into their shoes a bit.
I’m not talking about making one of those Ideal Client Avatars (ICAs) where you write down this imaginary person’s favorite coffee order, nail polish color, and number of children (you can breathe a sigh of relief and thank me for that one).
What you should think about is your ideal client’s problems and how you solve them. Really put yourself in their position and try to get a feel for the things that trip them up on a day-to-day basis. You’ll want to make a list of these and keep it handy for later.
Remember, your website is not for you. It’s for your client. You want to have content that will intrigue and interest them, and have them believing you are the best solution to their problem.
So how do you prepare all this amazing content? Let’s dive in and find out!
Outline
Your very first step should be to think about the sections of your website and create an outline.
You’ll want to map out which pages you’ll have (Home page, About page, etc.) and put them in an order that makes sense. This will eventually become your top navigation links.
Pro tip: keep your top navigation to 5 links or less. Any more than that will be too cluttered. I’ll talk about what to do with any extra links you want included later on.
Don’t feel restricted in what you name these pages - you can absolutely be creative here! Just make sure you communicate clearly what each page is.
The most common page types would be a Home page (of course!), an About page, a Contact page, and a Services page. Depending on the nature of your business you might also have a Portfolio or Gallery page, or a Shop/Store page.
I recommend using sticky notes when drafting your outline. Use one sticky note per page type and rearrange them until you have an order you like.
Now, you might be saying “Ranita, I’m 100% digital - I don’t need no paper!” and trust me - I get it. I, too, am a digital girl and have very little paper in my life.
However, I went through this process myself and actually found the sticky notes to be incredibly helpful! But you do you! Ultimately you’ll just want to create your navigation links, name them, and play around with the order.
As you’re thinking through the order of your pages, take into consideration what you want your visitors to do. What’s your ultimate goal for when they’re on your site?
What one thing do you want them to do?
Do you want them to book a call with you? Download a freebie and get on your email list? View your gallery of awesome past work?
Pick the one thing that’s at the top of your wish list for visitor actions and then funnel them toward that action with your page flow.
Start with your Home page. People will usually land there first. So put a CTA (call to action) loud and proud right there above the fold. Be sure to use bright/accent/eye-catching colors to draw attention to links or buttons that you want people to click.
Then as you go through the rest of your pages keep adding CTAs to direct people toward the end goal action.
This should go without saying, but please please please make sure you test all your links so your buttons go where you want them to!
I don’t know how many potential leads have been lost because of links that went somewhere unexpected.
Photos
Ok, now that you’ve gotten your overall flow and outline figured out it’s time to gather your photos.
“But I don’t have any photos! And what kind of photos should go on my site anyway? And I don’t want to pay for professional headshots right now… What should I do?”
Chill - I got you!
First off, you’ll definitely want pictures of your business to be on your site. If you have a brick and mortar business this will be easy enough.
Take your smartphone and snap some (in focus) pictures of your building, products, employees, etc. If you run an online business you can include images of your past work or client photos (if you have their permission).
No matter which type of business you have you can always supplement with stock photos.
These are good quality, high-resolution general images that will make your website more visually appealing.
Check out my post on my favorite websites to use for free stock photos and videos.
You’ll also want to include some pictures of yourself on your website.
At the very least grab that smartphone and take some selfies! And at the very most you can hire a professional photographer for a business photoshoot. Or include some of both!
Just be sure to have at least one photo of you in there.
Once you’ve gathered all your images you’ll want to resize them to be 500 KB or less. The reason you’ll want to do this is because smaller image sizes mean faster page loading times on your website.
You want to keep things running as smoothly as possible for your visitors so we’re going to do our best to minimize any buffering or slow-downs.
As you’re resizing your images you’ll also want to rename them from the standard “IMG_1001” or however they pull up. Why? Because giving your images descriptive names (with keywords) is going to help Google know what they are.
Google can’t “see” your photos - it’s relying on the image title to know what the image is. So the more information you can give Google the better it’s going to categorize and rank your site (easy SEO hack!)
Let’s talk for a quick minute about keywords. You’ve probably heard about SEO and keyword search terms but how do you find yours?
Think about your ideal customer searching for solutions to their problem on Google. What words or terms are they entering? Those are going to be your keywords!
So go ahead and sprinkle in your keywords into your image names. But a word of caution: don’t jam all your keywords into every single title.
Google has caught onto that and will NOT reward you for it. Make your titles sound natural - like how a human would actually speak. You might have to get a little creative here, but you can do it!
Tagline
Hard truth time.
You have 8 seconds to capture your visitors’ attention and keep them interested in your site. Just 8 seconds!
This is why creating an awesome Home page is essential. That’s where a tagline comes in.
A tagline lets people know what you do and who you help. This short phrase or few sentences should grab your readers’ attention and make them want to follow your CTA or scroll down and keep reading.
Here are some examples of great taglines:
BOLD, STRESS FREE DIY
WILDLY empowering squarespace templates
A designer website you’re obsessed with and a put-together business that feels digitally legit. On budget and done by you—with confidence. Should we pinch you now or later? Credit: https://www.bigcatcreative.com/
Ready to build the life you want?
Take control of your family's financial future while doing what you LOVE!
I've been there
I was tired of having to work a job I hated when all I wanted to do was to be able to stay at home with my kids.
You can do it too
Credit: https://www.thevirtualsavvy.com/
Dreaming of starting a successful Squarespace web design business?
I can help!
Credit: https://paigebrunton.com/
Beautifully simple Squarespace sites
For non-techy folks ready to level up their business
That last one is mine!
https://www.goldstandardak.com/
As you can see, your tagline should communicate what your business offers and who it’s right for.
Now, if you’re a physical (brick and mortar) business or you’re location-specific you should include that in your tagline as well (photographers serving specific regions, a restaurant in a specific city, etc.)
Now where do you put your awesome tagline? On your Home page above the fold.
What does this “above the fold” term mean? Basically it just means it should be visible without having to scroll anywhere.
Quick sidenote: this term actually came from the newspaper industry. Back in the day when printed newspapers were all the rage, they would get folded in half for easier transport and distribution.
The attention-grabbing front page headline would need to be visible above the fold to make selling the papers easier. There’s your fun fact of the day!
Page Content
Now it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty (said in a Jack Black / Nacho Libre voice).
It’s time to write your page content!
If this feels overwhelming or daunting, pause and take a breath. Know that you don’t have to write all this content in one day (that would probably be too much anyway!) Just pick one page at a time and focus on that.
Ok, remember when I talked about putting yourself in your customers’ shoes? Thinking through the obstacles and roadblocks they’re encountering?
Those are your customers’ pain points, and if you made a list of them now is the time to use it! (If you haven’t made a list, go ahead and do that now. It’s ok - I’ll wait!)
That list of pain points is going to give you a base to pull from when writing your page copy. You want to frame your services in a way that is solving your customers’ problems. What does that look like? Here’s an example:
Are you spending hours doing all the things but still not landing paying clients?
Do you post on social media but are not seeing the traction you expected?
Have you tried being of service but ended up only attracting freebie seekers?
Is there no consistency in people looking to hire you much less even reaching out to chat?
Do you feel that no matter what you do to find new customers, nothing seems to be working?
Credit: https://kendrickshope.com/
This copy is addressing the pain points by asking if this is how the customer feels / is this what they’re experiencing.
Use your list of pain points to craft this kind of copy for your pages. You want to build up to showing how you’re capable of solving all these problems.
If you have pictures of your past work or products make sure you sprinkle them in throughout your pages! This is a great way to add visual interest to a page as well as build your credibility.
Another way to build credibility and trust is to sprinkle in testimonials from past clients if you have them.
Keep in mind you don’t have to list the whole testimonial as a large block of text. You can use snippets of it here and there on different pages.
When writing your page copy it’s ok to tell stories, but always make sure to relate it back to how you can help your customer.
Remember, your website is for your customer - not for you!
Don’t forget to include CTAs on every page (yes really - every page!)
You’ve likely already thought about this a bit when drafting your outline, but make sure you’re funneling your visitors toward your end goal action.
Use colors that pop to highlight your CTAs and for goodness’ sake grab that attention with your interesting headlines!
I’ve found it’s helpful to create an FAQ section or page as well, but if you’re fairly new in business you can add it later as you get consistent questions from clients.
Footer
Last but not least we’ve got the Footer section. This is an often overlooked but still important area.
Remember when I said I’d tell you what to do with those extra navigation links that wouldn’t fit at the top? Well here ya go!
I recommend using the Footer as a place to put links to all the pages you wanted to fit in your top navigation but couldn’t.
People will still have easy access to these links, and they won’t clutter up the top. It’s a win win!
In addition it’s a good idea to have your logo, copyright/trademark, and a search bar in the Footer.
That way if someone is wanting to revisit a section on a specific page but can’t remember where it is, you’ve just helped them out (and also kept them on your site for longer).
The footer is also a great place to link to your privacy policy and terms and conditions. This boring but necessary stuff isn’t something you’ll want to heavily showcase, but should still be easily found.
That’s it! Those are my tips on how to prepare content for your website.