A question certain to cause great debate amongst website designer, developers and copywriters. And like many great debates, there’s no clear-cut right or wrong answer but we can offer up a few tips to help you decide which works best for your business, which should come first – the design or the copy?
Is your product or service unfamiliar?
If your business is offering something completely new then it is more likely that you will require additional content in order to explain the benefits, features, how it works, FAQs and the like. In this instance is often best to create the copy first to ensure that important information is not cut purely to suit the design of the website.
Are you selling something people are already comfortable with and understand?
If it’s fairly obvious that readers are already familiar with the products/services that your business provides then it might be best to have the website design created first to ensure that it really stands out. When the product or service is already well known then you will be competing more on the branding and the look. In this instance the copy stands as a back-up to the design and can be created to suit the layout.
What does your website need to do?
If your business website is an eCommerce site with lots of functionality involved then it may be more worthwhile to begin with the design to ensure that all the pieces of the site work together just as they should. If your business website is more of a brochure type website then perhaps the content should come first since it will really need to pop to do its job.
You may find designers who prefer to create a mock-up based on already crafted copy, or copywriters that prefer to write to the wire-frames, or vice versa, but at the end of the day it’s the readers of the website that really matter – what’s most important to them? Information, imagery, or a combination of the two? This can be used as a guide as to what comes first. Just remember that when a reader lands on your site you have mere seconds in which to engage their attention, so ask yourself this – what’s going to keep them from clicking away – the design or the words on the banner?
Obviously the best idea is to have your website designer/developer and your copywriter working together to achieve the very best overall result for your website. Website Design Centre offers both – we have in-house website designers and copywriters that work together to get the balance right.
