Content is the lifeblood of your website. It’s king. We here this time and time again. Heck, we’ve even said it here and here and here. This is because good quality content increases the likelihood that your site will convert visitors.
So by now, you know that you should be writing website content and continually updating your site with fresh content (the easiest way is through a blog on your website).
The next challenge is organizing your content in a thoughtful manner – one that is accessible to first-time visitors and regular customers.
Prioritizing your content
So where do you begin? A good place to start is to download the first part of our eBook Get Started Building Your Website Part One: Planning. Even if you’ve built your site, there’s a lot of great information on how to plan and organize your website content. Or you can read this blog post for the highlights.
What you should understand well is which information is going to be the most important to your visitors. We call this understanding your audience. If you don’t have a firm grasp on your audience or who you expect to view and read your website, then pause here and check out our blog on creating online personas.
Knowing whom you are writing for is a good chunk of the battle. The broader issue here is the goal of your website. Is it to sell products through an online store or to teach something or provide a service?
The Jeneba Project does a great job of guiding users through the navigation, using pictures as links.
Create a content list
Make a list of must-have content for your website. In essence, what content do you need in order to reach the goal of your website. For example if you are promoting the sale of your book, you may not want to have “buy now” buttons everywhere. Your primary goal, instead, would most likely be to provide information. Consider writing website content that explains some of the benefits of reading the book.
You can also provide other information such as blog articles, short stories or other works to display your creativity and invite people to see if they appreciate your writing style. Then you can display your content on your website accordingly. All the while, you can have subtle messages that allow your users to very easily find where to purchase.
Giving By Design keeps a professional look and feel by tying consistent graphics throughout the page.
Organizing content
Think about how you want to display this content on your pages. For each page you build, think about the following things:
- What does a visitor want to know first when arriving to this page?
- What, if any, images can I use to make my point?
- Is this information absolutely vital for this page?
This will help you prioritize your content page by page, making it easier for visitors to scan and read your site. Visual elements such as our custom panel widget, horizontal lines and column dividers can really help you vary your content on each page.
If you want more ways to creatively organize your content your website, there’s always the eBook.