Metric's Guide to Web Design: Finding Value in a 30K Investment - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Creating content that connects

Your customer forms their initial perception of your brand within seconds of landing on your site. The imagery and language used will have a significant influence on the position your brand holds in their mind. Every image, blog post, video and resource on your site is a representation of who you are and what you represent.

Creating a plan

At the beginning of a website build, a creative marketing agency will request access to online analytics to ensure that every decision is based on actual user engagement data. To determine the depth, amount and organization of content displayed on each page, existing content is analyzed to develop a detailed understanding of what each page is meant to communicate. From there, messages are ranked by their importance to your reader to plan out the navigation of the page, which messages will come first, which messages are secondary and where to incorporate the call to action within those messages.

Enhancing their experience

Branded content is without a doubt one of the most important components of your site. It may be tempting to pass off content creation to an intern or office administrator, or simply copy and paste from your old site, but an investment in your content will pay off. Remember, your website is a marketing asset, not a technical asset. Content is king and professional copywriting ensures that your content remains consistent and on-brand.

Just like the text on the page, the look and feel of your site expresses your brand through colour palettes, supporting visuals and the overall user experience. Every element on the page should keep the brand and the customer in mind at all times. Authentic photography, graphics and multimedia, created by your agency to align with your brand should all be designed to evoke an emotional response from your customers.

Driving traffic

A beautiful new site won’t do your business any good if it can’t be found. Search experts prepare your site so that when it launches, it’s optimized for all major search engines. This process involves applying Google analytics tracking software site wide, uploading xml sitemaps for indexing by Google and Bing and incorporating title tags, image alt tags and meta descriptions across the site that include keywords carefully selected to generate valuable organic search traffic.