Why Your Website Copy Should Come Before Your Design
So many creative entrepreneurs (or truly—any entrepreneur) want to start designing the pretty parts of their website before they start writing any of the website copy. I get it. It’s fun to play with your colors, photos, imagery, fonts, and the layout.
But like most things in life—a good foundation is required in order for things to have strong standing and make the most impact.
Earlier this week I talked to you about why your brand messaging needs to come before your copy. Today I want to talk to you about why your website copy (the words on your website) need to be written before you start designing your website.
Yep.
Brand Messaging comes before your copy.
Copy comes before your design.
Let’s dig in.
(But first—have you grabbed my free Brand Messaging Workbook yet? If not, be sure to grab it below.)
Download the free Brand Messaging Workbook
Think about it… before you start building a house, your architect and contractor have to draw up blueprints. You’ve got to know what you’re building and where every.single.thing is going. You don’t want to start building your house all willy-nilly, without knowing where power outlets or plumbing or gas lines are going to go.
So, just like building a house, building a website works the same way.
You want to know what words you need to say first, and then you need to know where they’re going to go.
Your message is the whole point of your website.
Yes, I know. You want your website to be beautifully designed. BUT—the words you use are what’s going to grab at your ideal client’s heart and mind. It’s your words that are going to make your visitor think, “Oh… she’s talking right to me. It’s like she’s reading my mind.”
Having a clear message is also what is going to help Google and the other internet fairies look favorably upon your website for SEO purposes. If things are all mixed up or confusing, Google is going to be confused, too.
You want your words to take your ideal client on a journey…and that journey hopefully leads to booking/hiring/purchasing from you.
Once you have your copy written, then the design can help further persuade your ideal client to buy.
You can plan the layout of your website better.
Whenever I provide full website copy to a client, I also provide the wireframing. Wireframing is when you have your website copy laid out and structured the way it will be laid out in your website. It’s essentially a mockup of your website. It’s not pretty… it’s usually black and white and super simple.
But it exists to help your web designer know how to layout the website so the design fits the copy.
No one wants to design a website only to have to rearrange or change things later because the design didn’t make sense for what words you wanted to use.
Because remember—you’re leading your visitor on a journey… you don’t want your words out of order. So your design fits around the words in the order they’re meant to be in.
It prevents you from having to “fit” your copy to your design.
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to fit your website copy to your website design. If you’ve ever DIY-ed your own website and started with designing… then you’ve probably found yourself having to add sections, remove sections, move sections, add blocks, etc. to your original design once you start trying to write the words you want to say.
Because, again, it all comes back to the main message of your website.
I’m circling back here, but your message is the point of your website. The design is important, too, but the message is the point. Stop trying to fit your message around your design… you’re just going to do it a disservice.
Got questions? Need help? I’m here for you. And lucky for you—if you need both the copy and the web design… I’ve got you.
