Elements Needed to Create a Badass Website – Design and Content

Before you sign that contract for a new website design, there’s a question you need to answer — are you getting content optimization with it? While it’s true that a stellar website design is pivotal in brand success and user experience, it doesn’t drive traffic as a standalone tool. Design has to be paired with strategic content creation in order to produce the ROI you need.

Think of website design as your building. The right floor plan, paint choices and interior decorating can significantly influence the customer experience by making them feel the mood of your brand and company culture. However, these aesthetics won’t make up for terrible customer service. Content is like your customer service team. Ideally, it informs website visitors, answers questions and guides them through experiencing your site. Additionally, strategic website content works as a marketing tool by showing search engines what your site’s content is about and who will most benefit from visiting your site.

To make certain your next website design is filled with quality content, make sure the team you choose to design it has a firm grasp on the following aspects of SEO:

• Keyword research
• Writing
• Image optimization

Keyword Research - Quality content must be built on strategic keyword research. Consumers are using key phrases to research their buying decisions, and search engines use these phrases to help determine which websites are most likely to fulfill consumer queries. If your website content doesn’t contain key phrases, you’re going to struggle to drive website traffic because search engines won’t be returning your website as a top result.

Writing - Poor writing is an immediate red flag to consumers that your brand may not have the integrity they seek. Consumers will also be turned away by content that doesn’t answer their search query, and the resulting bounce rate will alert search engines that your website is not valuable to visitors. Your content needs to be free of grammar and spelling mistakes, be formatted in a way that makes reading easy, and contain the answers to the questions hindering their decision-making process.

Image optimization - Search engines are evaluating not only written content, but also visual content when determining search results rank. Any images used on your website should be optimized to ensure search engines see the value your site holds for consumers. There are several image optimization steps that are key to ranking well in search engine results, so it’s important that the website design company you choose excels at every aspect.

As you can see, there’s more to website traffic than just a fancy design. You also need the power of keyword research, skilled writing and image optimization to rank well in search engine results. Understanding the value of each of these steps will help you make the best investment of your marketing and branding dollars.