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Content First Website Design
- Isabella Bainbridge Design
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 9
It may feel like putting the cart before the horse, and trust me when I say I utterly understand your perspective when being asked to deliver the content for your website before seeing the website design and why it may make you feel confused. Let me explain why ‘content first’ is the right way to work if you want your website to not only look stunningly good and very importantly aligned to your brand and customer needs...
Content first, what am I talking about?
By content, I mean anything and everything you want to include in your website:
Pages + Copy – every single page and word to be included on your website
SEO - meta data - the content search engine love
Imagery + video + illustrations + backgrounds + logos etc
Forms/questionnaires
01 CONTENT!
Content informs design and navigation: design considerations are essential in the content-first design approach but are addressed from your customers perspective. With a focus on the customers needs designers can create websites that look fabulous and enhance your customer experience.
This means it is necessary to create page layouts and visual elements that complement the content and help customers navigate.
Your website’s design and layout should be tailored to your content. Knowing the content in advance helps create a design that not only looks great but also complements the information you want to share, and helps determine a logical path for customers to move through your website. Planning content first makes it easier to structure menus and links making it intuitive for your customers.
02 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE FIRST AND FOREMOST!
Websites are interactive digital spaces that engage with your customers. To ensure a positive customer experience, designers need to know what kind of content will be on your site.
Content will directly impact the layout of your website. Some websites are image rich and others text heavy or they may have lots of videos.
03 THINK GOOGLE
If you want your website to rank high on search engines? Think about what your content needs to include – from keywords to meta descriptions its a priority. By creating your content first you can ensure that the structure of the site supports SEO efforts.
04 THE DRAWBACK OF STOCK IMAGES AND PLACEHOLDER TEXT
The first time you see your new website, you should feel totally connected to it…. without content first you will be previewing stock images and placeholder text.
It’s difficult to really feel this connection with your new website when using placeholder text or stock imagery that’s not aligned with your brand. This can result in you not liking the design because it does not feel quite right and results in lengthening your project.
If you are not connected to the design of your website it can result in:
Feedback becomes confusing on placeholder content, and revision requests that are not representative of your actual content. It also extends the design process.
Further investment in Copywriting or Photography when using placeholders in the design stage, when your actual content is available to place in your website it may not fit, and you could need more imagery and/or content needs re-writing to fit the space, you may incur additional costs if you are using copywriters or photographers.
It is a must to work with the copy, and not against it. Designers will use your imagery to tell your brand story and your branding to bring everything together.
05 IF YOU NEED A BRAND SHOOT!
If you are a new business or rebranding your aesthetics completely, it’s likely you’re looking to book a brand shoot, which can be tricky to plan a shoot if you don’t know the aesthetics of your new brand identity.
If this is the case, it’s best to wait until your brand strategy is finalised which will form an overview of your new brand identity and allow you or your Photographer to style a brand shoot which falls inline with your new identity.
Work with your Designer & Photographer to align dates for the delivery of your images to line up with your project timeframe. Your designer may allow for a pause or a longer turnaround in your project to accommodate for the brand shoot.
06 FINAL THOUGHTS
This is all about getting your website found on search engines such as Google. Your content needs to include keywords relevant to your business, and descriptive titles.
If you decide to work with a copywriter they would help you with this, alternatively there’s lots of resources on-line to guide you, There are also SEO pro’s out there too.
Content is the Queen Bee… it's the reason your customers love you...
Write your content with personality + identity, it becomes the dna that's woven through everything you do!
“Personality is the mysterious force that attracts us to certain people and repels us from others. Because personality greatly influences our decision-making process, it can be a powerful tool in design.” — Arron Walter, co-host of Design Better and author of Designing for Emotion
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