Website Design Content
Once you've decided what you and your audience want, it's time to prepare the content. This involves more than adding HTML code to documents you may already have. Here are some general guidelines.
The home page should draw your audience in, not overwhelm them with information. Keep the layout simple and the text brief. Add graphics to help communicate your ideas.
Reproducing existing brochures or other documents on the Web usually doesn't work well. People have short attention spans and don't particularly like to read huge amounts of text. Use only the most important information. Add headings and bold text, when appropriate, to let the eye rest.
Good content is customer service information. What questions do people ask most often? If you don't have a list of frequently asked questions and answers, sit down alone, or with your staff, and write one. Then post this information on your website. The more your customers can get answers from your site, the less time someone has to spend answering those same questions on the phone or in writing. These same pages can give people the information they want regarding your companies policies, and ordering information.
Content with Search Engines in Mind. It has become more and more important, not only to have your content appeal to your own audience, but to also have it "Search Engine Friendly" You need to understand what key phrases people may be searching for, and incorporate them properly into your text content. This can be a large job in itself, and many web site owners rely on optimization firms to help them with this. |
