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Your website content plays one of the most important roles in creating your online presence. It can tell the story of your unique brand, illustrate your service, and drive potential customers to purchase. Once you’ve chosen the perfect website template, the next step is to figure out what types of content your website needs most. From blog posts to logos, there are many kinds of content you’ll need to consider if you want your website to accurately communicate your product, services, and brand. Whether you’re redesigning your website or starting a new website from scratch, gathering and creating your website’s content can quickly become overwhelming. Save valuable time by reading these tips before you start building your website.

How Many Pages Do You Really Need?

Before you start typing, take a step back and think about what pages your website truly needs. Drilling down your sitemap should be the first step of the content creation process. Think about your current website, look at your competitor’s website, and brainstorm what the main goal of your website will be. Is it to sell your product, describe your services, or highlight what makes you special? Once you have the main points you want to get across to your potential customers, creating your website pages will be easier. Don’t waste your time creating content that you’ll never share with your audience.

Can You Utilize Freelance Writers?

More company-specific content such as your mission statement, service descriptions, and company overview should be written in-house. However, think about what content could potentially be outsourced. Maybe you’re writing a blog, or need more general pages on your website. If there’s an opportunity to outsource, identify it and take advantage of freelance writers. Ask your colleagues and friends if they have any suggestions of writers they’ve used in the past, or check out some of the many online tools available for content writing services.

What Kind of Images Should You Use?

Images can make or break your online presence, and are the backbone of nearly every website design. Having high-quality images is key to making your website look professional, trustworthy, and can help demonstrate your services effectively to your website visitors. On the other hand, low-quality, or poorly-sized images can negatively impact how visitors view your company, and can considerably lower your conversion rates by causing longer page loading times. Make sure you have enough high-quality images for your website by hiring a professional photographer, or by using stock images. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Website Content Best Practices:

To make your website as user-friendly as possible, there are certain website content best practices to keep in mind. These tips will not only help your website load faster through optimal image sizing, but will also help you layout your content in the most appealing way for website visitors. To make your website as efficient as possible, make sure your content follows these guidelines.

Logo and Graphic, and Icons

Your logo represents your brand and is one of the first impressions you leave with your customers, while icons play a large role in how easily customers navigate your website and understand your services. Follow these guidelines to make sure your logo and icons look crisp and clean on your site, no matter what type of device users are viewing your website on.

• File Type: A PNG file is best for these types of images. It allows you to have your logo set on a transparent background and provides you with a high quality, professional looking graphic.

• Size: Size your logo and icons 3 times larger than what you’d like them to be on the site. This will ensure that they look crisp and clean on retina screens. For example, if your logo is going to be around 250 pixels in width on your site, you’d want to make the logo 750 pixels wide.

Images

As mentioned before, purposeful images can enhance a customer’s experience and help incorporate your branding throughout your site. Follow these best practices to make sure your images look great and don’t slow down your page load times.

• File Type: Always use JPG files for images. PNG files can be very large and don’t necessarily make your image look better. It’s always best to only use PNG files for graphics like logos, icons, or type.

• Size: A good rule of thumb is to keep your image file size under 300KB. For large, full screen images like headers stick between 1600px and 2000px in width. Smaller images like thumbnails don’t need to be any larger than 900px in width.

Content

Always write your website content for actual users, rather than for search engines. While you may be tempted to “keyword stuff” your website in hopes of improving your ranking in search engines, having low-quality content on your website will only hurt your web presence in the long run. As a best practice, make sure the content you’re writing for your website visitors is useful. As a starting point, think of common questions you get about your business and develop articles that answer those questions.

Whether you have a team of hard-working employees supporting you or you’re just venturing into the business world on your own so far, your website’s About page matters.

Studies show that in nearly every industry, the About page is one of the most visited pages on any company’s website. Why? Because every type of customer almost always wants to connect with a business before purchasing something from them.

And since it’s so important to get it right, it’s also probably why so many of us often struggle to find the right balance of being both informational and engaging!

If you’re in the process of creating content for your website’s About page, here are a few tips to help you figure out what you’d like it to say — and how to do so in a way that will help generate more leads for your business.

Quality Over Quantity

This rule applies to every web page, but is especially important for your About page.

Many websites out there overdo it by providing far too much content in order to describe a company’s history, values, goals, leadership background information, and more.

Although we initially may think that providing the most information is the best step for having the greatest impact, too much content can actually have the opposite effect and turn away people from your business.

Instead of writing out all the details that may relate to the business, focus on the most important information your ideal customer’s would want to know. If this is hard for you to achieve with an unbiased perspective, consider drafting up information as best you can and then asking for a few “outsiders” (such as close friends or family) to give you their advice and opinions for revision.

Get Personal

One mistake companies tend to make in regards to their website content is that they avoid being too personal. In contrast, some of the most successful online businesses out there today are the ones that do a great job of making personal connections with their audiences.

This is especially vital to your website if you are a local business trying to reach members in your own community. Remember: people want to do business with those they know, like and trust. How can they learn to like (or love) your business if they can’t connect with you on at least a small personal level?

Don’t be afraid to talk about why your work matters to you personally, what type of impact your organization is hoping to have on the local community, or the values you want your company to uphold.

Introduce Yourselves

As human beings, we’re all very visual creatures, so it’s a smart idea to utilize photos to connect with your ideal customers on your About page.

Include photographs of the owner, leadership or managers, team members, and even behind-the-scenes photos if appropriate! This allows any potential customers visiting your website on the web to learn a little more about who makes up your organization, and allows them to put a face to a name should they ever call, email or communicate with people within your team.

Focus on Your Audience

A great About page also makes sure to bring attention to the questions and concerns of a company’s audience. Talk about why your customers may be searching for answers or address their current challenges.

When you start an About page with this in mind, you’ll be able to do more than talk about yourself: you’ll connect with your audience right from the start by acknowledging their needs, and not just yours.

Tell Your Story with an Impactful Website

liveBooks offers stunning, customizable website templates for wedding industry professionals and creatives.

Impress your potential clients with a visually stunning website that is ready for search engines and looks great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free today!