Content developers and website designers go hand-in-hand. Whether your website designer is building you a brand new website, or if you’re going through a website refresh, it’s important that your website tells your story. So what does your web designer really want from you? Content.

When it comes to website content, we’re talking more than simply text and pictures. For Klimb Creative, we want to know the nitty gritty details so we know how to build and structure your website. Here are a few basic elements we want to know:

Your Web Designer Is Desperate for Content

Finalize Your Sitemap

What is a sitemap? Simply put, it is a list of the pages on your website. It’s important to have this finalized in the very early stages of the project. We can always add pages later, but we need to know the foundation. If the sitemap isn’t finalized, it could prolong the launch date of your website and cause confusion along the way.

As you’re planning out your sitemap, consider the flow of your message and how you want people to navigate. Do you need subpages? Do the subpages need a separate navigation bar or menu?

This is a great time to have a quick meeting with your website designer and your content developer together. The three of you should have a conversation about the flow of content and determine the placement of each page. Most companies have pretty standard sitemaps like:

Home
About Us
- Meet the Staff
Product/Service Pages
Blog
Contact Us

Page Goals

As designers, we also want to know the goal for each page. Is it to capture leads? Is it to further explain a service? Is it to showcase pictures? Is it a landing page? It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be thought through.

Defining a goal for each page will help your content developer, and your website designer immensely!

Example - About Us Page:

Goal: To inform visitors about the company. Include a brief statement about the company, mission statement, and short history.

Content

This might be the most important component to having a stellar website. As a piece of advice, be mindful of the length of each page! You don’t want your visitors to scroll, and scroll, and scroll some more. Try and keep the most important content above the fold (towards the top of the page). Keep the content clear, concise and to the point.

When we talk about website content we want to know the components of each page, such as:

What are the Headings, Page Titles and Description?

Your content developer will help you determine what these should be. As a website designer though, we need this content to input into your content management system (CMS). Each of these elements will help increase your search engine optimization (SEO) and help your website to be found online.

Headings

Heading tags help drive your SEO and also make it easy for people to read your page content. Make sure you have one Heading 1 tag on every page. Heading 2 tags can be used more than once to help break up sections and paragraphs.

Page Titles

Page titles also help boost your organic SEO, but more importantly, it can serve as a snippet about the page when your website pops up on Google or Bing. Page titles should be unique to each and every page, and include keywords. Be sure to keep this at about 50 characters.

Page Description

Each page should include a unique page description - don’t copy/paste the same description for each page. Include keywords and a brief summary about the page. Keep the length around 150 characters. This is primarily used for SEO purposes and will appear under your page title in search engines.

What is the Call-to-Action (CTA)?

This goes back to the goal of each page. What do you want people to do on the page? Do you want them to visit another page? Fill out a form? Download a one-sheet? Watch a video? Schedule a meeting?

Be sure your website designer knows where each CTA should link to. This could be your contact page on your website, an external website, or a blog post. You can include this as a line item under your page goal:

Example - About Us Page:

Goal: To inform visitors about the company. Include a brief statement about the company, mission statement, and short history.

CTA: Meet the Staff (Link to Meet the Staff Page)

Is there a contact form?

For the pages that require a contact form, your web designer will want to know the following information:

What is the name of the form?
What content do you want to gather? (Name, Company Name, Phone Number, Email Address, etc)
What email address do you want the contact form to be sent to?
What do you want the button to say? (Submit, Request Now, etc.)
Do you want a “Thank you” message after the visitor submits the form?

Do you have images?

Breaking up your text with images or infographics is a great way to keep your visitors engaged. Knowing which images you want to use on which pages is incredibly helpful when building the page structure.

We also want to know if you want a slideshow on your page. If so, do you want thumbnails, navigation arrows, etc. We can certainly construct it for you, but if you have something in mind beforehand, let us know!

It’s also important to maintain a consistent look throughout your website. As a piece of personal advice, please stray from using clipart! Be creative and have someone design icons or illustrations for you.

Again, you can include this as a line item like shown below:

Example - About Us Page:

Goal: To inform visitors about the company. Include a brief statement about the company, mission statement, and short history.

CTA: Meet the Staff (Link to Meet the Staff Page)

Images: Company Logo, slideshow of staff outing pictures.

Do you have videos?

Videos can be a very powerful way to communicate your message, like this one here. If you have videos to include on your website, your website designer will want to know which pages should have which videos. Your homepage or your About Us page are great places to have a video about your company. They will also want the link so they can embed the video (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo, etc).

Delivering the Content

In a world where floppy disks and even CDs are a thing of the past, it’s important for your website designer to know how they will be receiving your content. There are many great cloud solutions available so editing and deliverables are made easy. A few solutions we recommend:

Google Drive
OneNote
Box
Email or Thumb Drive (last resort!)

Your website is an important piece of your overall content and marketing strategy. As a web designer, it is our goal to make sure every piece of content has a home and a purpose. When it comes time for you to give your website a facelift, let us know. We’d be thrilled to be part of the project! Want a website evaluation? Contact Klimb Creative to schedule a meeting!

Meet our guest blogger!

Katie Saglimbene, marketing professional and creative enthusiast, has a deep appreciation for small business in Lansing, Michigan - which is what fueled her desire to start Klimb Creative, LLC in 2015. She has over six years of marketing experience in the IT industry. She is a foodie, has a knack for technology, loves gardening, and enjoys kayaking and golfing.