Content marketing goes hand in hand with your website design. If you have a well designed website, but your content is lacking, then you won’t be engaging your target audience and getting your message across. However, if you’re publishing content that pleases the reader’s eyes and draws them in, you’re on your way to converting visitors into customers.
Content marketing, SEO, social media marketing etc, are phrases used each and every day by marketers. Digital marketing has become increasingly popular among budding businesses for many reasons including, higher ROI, broader reach, the ability to convert visitors, and longer shelf-life. The results that businesses get from this can be great and long-lasting.
Why create a kickass content marketing strategy?
Content marketing is all about creating and publishing relevant, valuable and consistent content to build and maintain target audience engagement. When done well, your content marketing strategy will gain traction and create profits. Valuable content that is visually appealing drives brand awareness, creates demand, and increases revenue when done correctly.
Search engines love it
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality of traffic and attracting maximum visitors to your website. Whilst content marketing focuses on using relevant content to drive profitable customer or client action.
When you have SEO with no content marketing, it’s like a body with no soul. Search engine optimisation is centred around your content marketing strategy. This is because every website needs to have words, keywords, articles, etc. So, in order to be successful, both must go (and work) together.
Content such as a blog post is a valuable resource and for many, should be a part of your digital marketing strategy. Writing blog posts allows you to update your target audience and keep your website current with new and exciting news, as well as offering valuable insights and information. Creating content like this can improve your placing on search engine results pages, making your company’s product (or services) more visible and driving more potential customers to you.
But more importantly, you need to cater to readers
Previously when it came to SEO, you could get away with creating content that pleased search engines in order to gain a better ranking in search engine results pages. However, due to the advanced knowledge of algorithms, user experience is now taken into account too.
Those who provide the best information are given priority along with web design, user experience and website load time. The overall aim of user experience is to get away from keyword stuffing and deliver content to users in a more catered way. Publishing content this way is much more preferred by consumers as the communication is more personal.
Content marketing as a lead magnet
A website that is visually appealing, easy to navigate and simple to understand is one hell of a sales funnel.
You have probably heard the advice “know your audience” a thousand times when it comes to marketing, but it’s still the best way to make sure you’re catering to your audience’s needs. Whether you’re writing, filming, recording, or designing content, you need to make sure you’re connecting with your current audience and the audience you want to attract to your business.
“Knowing your audience” is something you’ve probably heard a thousand times. However, as cliche as it may sound, it is still the best way to ensure you’re marketing your business correctly.
Whether you’re writing a blog post, filming videos, or designing visual content, you need to make sure that all of your content marketing efforts are reaching the right audience. After all, you are the business owner and you’ve put all your efforts into the important elements of your web design and content marketing strategy. So, it’s only right to fully ensure you’re attracting the right customers for your business.
How web design impacts content marketing
When it comes to your digital marketing strategy, the most important part of this should be a well-designed website. Your web design impacts content and needs to create a great first impression for all visitors and potential customers.
In fact, you need a content-friendly site that has good website readability and is visually attractive. A poor web design can shatter all your content marketing efforts and will lose users’ attention and then ultimately, result in a high bounce rate.
Let’s see how web design impacts content marketing and what you can do to make sure you’re ticking all the boxes.
Accessibility
For your customers to be able to read, engage and enjoy your content, it needs to be accessible. You could create a great blog post or video content, but that is wasted if your audience isn’t able to find it quickly. It only takes 2.6 seconds for a user to zone in on part of a website that influences them the most.
Nowadays, your audience doesn’t intend to spend hours scrolling through your website. They want to find what they are looking for easily and quickly. If you stop them from doing this, this will drive them away from your web page and straight into the arms of your competitor.
Modern marketing has now overtaken the traditional style, which has been replaced by elements such as burger menus, drop-down menus and search bars. Adding these to your website allows your audience to reach their destination in a single click.
Thus, your website must provide easy navigation to the users. Remember that an easy to navigate website has more power than any other tool that a business can use because it ensures client satisfaction and convenience.
Readability
When creating content such as a blog post or case study, the content’s readability should always be a key element. It’s important to ensure that your audience is able to understand the content when they first look at it. Several factors including white space, visual contents and font choice are all part of creating reader-friendly content.
So, whilst your web designer is creating your website, consider font choice, size, colour, etc, as these will all impact the content’s readability. Any users that have been directed to your website via content marketing could be put off if your web design makes reading unpleasant or difficult.
It may seem like you’re overthinking every little detail, but you aren’t. Attention to detail is definitely a welcome skill in web design and when thinking about how your web design affects the content you create. For example, when designing your content page, try and steer clear of using bright and flashy colours.
Additionally, you’ll need to ensure that your text colour doesn’t clash. It’s best to avoid using too many colours across your website, or a font choice (especially when combined with poor colour choices) that is difficult to see/read.
You’ll also need to consider that the majority of your audience is accessing your published content on a mobile device. It’s super frustrating when a business has a website that doesn’t translate well across mobile devices. In fact, most people believe that a business’s web page should be better than its desktop version.
Appearance
Even if we say we don’t, when it comes to web design, we do judge a book by its cover. You could have the best product on the inside, but if it’s poorly packaged, nobody will buy it. This is the same when it comes to your content; it will fail to bring visitors to your website if it’s not appealing.
It takes almost no time at all for a visitor to form their opinion of your website. A simple glance over your website is all they need to decide whether they are going to stay. Up to a third of people could potentially leave your page if it isn’t visually appealing or you have a poorly designed layout.
When using content marketing, you may often add new content that looks messy or crowds the page if it’s not designed correctly. This is where you need to think ahead about how your web design affects your content marketing strategies. Your site needs to be able to cope with bulks of content but also remain in a neat layout that remains consistent with your brand.
You’ll need to avoid clustering the content and use ample white space as well as visual elements to break it up and make it easy to read. In order to get the users’ attention in the most important places, you might want to consider adding a visual hierarchy. When your site is being built, make sure that your web designer creates a design that matches your products and services.
If you think your existing website isn’t performing as it should (or as you’d expect), speak to the Suki Marketing web design team about a design refresh.
User friendly web design
The most important feature you need to get right on your business’s website is user-friendliness. Especially seeing as your website is for existing users and all the potential new customers you’re hoping to attract.
When visitors are able to navigate your site and it all works well, there is nothing more to ask for (apart from great conversions, of course). In light of this, there are several factors your web designer needs to keep in mind:
- The website should contain segments and categories to accommodate different content so the users can find them easily
- The design should allow all content to be accessed easily through concise navigation to avoid visitors having to look through several pages
- The content itself should be spaced out. The use of white space makes it easier for the audience to understand the information provided and allows more visual learners to read through your content
- The flow of the information should also be in a logical manner. Confusing visitors with a poor design will drive them away from your page
So, basically, your web design affects content marketing and vice versa. When you’ve got great quality, scannable content on a clean page where your mission and service are clearly defined, you’re doing the best for your business.
Following the above tips will help you in delivering a comfortable and satisfying user experience. If you have made a great first impression, your audience will keep coming back for more. Digital marketing is something widely embraced by many business owners nowadays, in order to provide their customers with more options.
Gaining the trust of your visitors and making them see that you are a better choice than your competitor is conveyed in your image of trust, credibility and professionalism.
Partner with a content marketing agency
Learn more about how web design impacts content marketing and the power of search engine optimization by speaking to our creative team. Whether you’re at the start of your online journey or looking for a web design refresh, we can help you maximise your presence and nail your content marketing.
Looking for a free consultation? We’re an informal bunch, so let’s have coffee and talk about your big ideas, together.
