You cannot build a great website for your business if you do not plan your website content.
Planning your website content is a crucial step in building an effective and engaging website.
If you want to build a website that will produce results and help you reach your goal for the business, it is crucial to plan your website content.
In my previous post, I spoke about the 6 things you must do before building a website for your business.
One of the points I wrote about was having a goal or an objective for your website.
It was really important that I made that point, please do check it out.
I have worked with clients who rushed to build a website for a business idea they had.
They had no plans for the content, they had no goals, nothing. Just a functioning website that produced absolutely no results.
The first thing to do when you want to start a business is not to build a website. Please get this clearly.
But that is not what we will be talking about in this blog post.
If you want to read that post, click here to do so.
So it starts by clarifying the purpose of the website. What do you want to achieve with it?
Identify your target audience and the primary actions you want them to take on your site. E.g. make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, contact you, etcetera.
1. Create a Site Map
One of the struggles you’ll face when creating a website is planning how you want to organize your website.
The problem is that sometimes, you want to put too many things on it. Other times, you can’t just think of what to put on the website.
What you want to do is to develop a structure for how you want it to look. Ask yourself, what do you want people to see first?
Where do you want people to go from that point? Should they see a contact button first before they see a small portion of your ‘about me’?
How many pages do you want to have on the website? What are these pages going to be about?
The most important pages are your homepage, your services page, an about page, and a contact page.
You can also include your blog page, your shop page, FAQ page, testimonial page, etc.
Depending on the kind of business you run, your pages and their priority may differ.
So organize your content into different sections and pages using a site map.
A sitemap is the blueprint of your site. It outlines the architecture and hierarchy of all your pages and this helps the designer or the developer to make decisions that lead to an easy-to-navigate website.
Having a sitemap will help you visualize the flow of information and ensure that your navigation is user-friendly.
There are many ways to draw a sitemap and you can choose to use some of the design software out there.
But for me, I use Canva. Canva has a ton of website templates that you can use to create a visual representation of your site.
Just go there and drag and drop the features that you want.
Drawing a sitemap can also be as simple as doing a rough sketch on a sheet of paper. I did a lot of that when I just started building websites.
A web designer will use design software like Figma, Illustrator, or Photoshop.
But whatever you do, Keep it simple.
2. Choose Your Content Types
After you are done creating a sitemap, the next thing you want to do is decide on the content format.
There are different kinds of content that can be put on a website, and each one of them has a purpose on that website.
For example, you can decide to grow a website with blog posts. In this case, you are helping your audience solve a problem on their own, empowering them to become amazing at what they do (and subsequently giving them more reason to use the product or service you’re selling).
A blog website will grow quickly–if it’s constantly being updated–because by posting valuable information, people will visit it constantly and your traffic will skyrocket.
Create an eBook as a form of content. Then use this ebook to get people’s email addresses so that you can market to them in their emails.
Creating an ebook is pretty simple, you can select existing blog posts that flow logically together and put them in a downloadable format.
Also, plan your visual elements.
If you are building a personal brand, and want to have a website for it, you need to take professional photos for the site.
Some of my website development clients used to think this was too vain and unnecessary, they would send me headshots of themselves taken with their Android phones.
When I turn it down, they start protesting. But when we eventually build the website with low-quality pictures, they begin to realize what I was talking about.
If you are a product-based business, you need to have good shots of your products from beautiful angles so that when you put them on your website, they’ll be appealing to the eyes.
Also, think of videos, do you want to put videos on your website? Think of infographics and other visual elements that will go up, Ensure that they align with your brand and complement your written content.
3. Craft Compelling Copy
When you are writing copies for your website, it is really important that you write what your audience wants to know.
The only way you can do this properly is if you have done proper research about your audience and you know what their goals, aspirations, challenges, etc. are.
Understand your target audience’s demographics, preferences, pain points, and needs.
You can do this by creating buyer personas to help you tailor your copy to specific customer segments.
Writing great website copy is crucial for attracting and engaging your target audience, conveying your brand’s message, and ultimately driving desired actions, such as purchases or sign-ups.
When writing web copies, focus on communicating the value of your products or services and how they address your audience’s needs.
So write clear, concise, and engaging copy for each of the pages of your website. Make sure you avoid jargon and technical terms that your audience may not understand.
Keep your sentences and paragraphs short for easy readability and use headings, subheadings, bullet points, etc. to make the content scannable.
Also, remember the principle of copywriting; talk about the benefits of your products and services and forget about the features.
My advice is that if you are writing your web copies by yourself, go back to the principles of copywriting.
You also want to optimize your web copies for SEO. Incorporate relevant keywords and phrases throughout your content to improve your website’s search engine visibility.
Finally, avoid keyword stuffing, and make sure your content reads naturally.
4. Link your Website Together
It is important that you give your website visitors more than just one way to find your page.
You can do this by linking your pages together.
For example, use a lot of internal links on your blog posts, and add links to other pages on your sidebars too.
Users should be able to flow from one page to another without having to go back to the menu.
Help your site visitors go from point A to point Z without any hassles.
Also, link your images to other images and other posts or pages on the website.
Then strategically incorporate Calls-to-Action (CTAs) throughout your content to encourage visitors to take specific actions, such as subscribing, contacting you, or making a purchase.
Conclusion
Always remember that your website’s content should align with your brand identity and serve the needs of your target audience.
By planning carefully, you can create a website that effectively communicates your message and drives positive results.
Once your website is live, continually analyze the performance of your content and make improvements based on user engagement and conversion data.
If you need help planning your website content or creating your website, send me a DM.