Develop Custom Website

Questions to Develop Custom Website Copy & Images

Many businesses and individuals in the print industry, such as artists, have often done their own custom copywriting for their products. They use that copy in brochures, signs, and even in personally pitching their work to new clients. There are branding phrases and slogans, and other aspects of their copy that have worked well for years.

Developing Website Copy

The problem is, these may not be very well suited to the demands of the Internet community. There are a few things to consider when developing copy for a client:

• Easy to Skim – Most people do not read all of the content on the web. For example, take a look at the formatting of the articles on LoveToKnow.com; the text is broken down into chunks of text with easy headers, and with various images and associated links breaking up the flow of text. If the articles were simply formatted as a block of text, visitors would simply skim over it. As it is, the font size, word and line spacing, and other parts of the layout are designed to make it easy for the reader to pull the content they are looking for out of the text on the page.
• Search Engine Optimization – A website is only as good as the traffic it generates, and the way that a site brings in traffic is through search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Even customizable search engines, such as Dogpile, use these core search engines as their primary source to research terms. Therefore, it is important that popular search terms are present on the web page. The full range of SEO strategies is beyond the scope of this article, but at the very least, the copy on the website should contain the phrases that people seeking to find the client's business would use to search.
• Brevity – Keep it short. People read short words more quickly. See?

Placing Images

As with copy, most businesses already have images in place on all of their advertising, business cards, signs, and other forms of identification. It is very important that the website reflects that, and that the designer develops custom website layouts that integrate not only the image, but also the general feel and color scheme. This is what, in marketing terms, is known as "branding" and it is designed to set up an association in the customer's mind between a certain shape, slogan, or even color, and the product advertised on the website.

There are certain aspects of website design that should be addressed when transferring a brand identity from paper to web:

• Dimension – This is the actual dimension of the image on the screen. The image needs to be big enough to recognize, but usually not so big as to take room away from content. Again, using LoveToKnow as an example, the images usually average 300 pixels in height or width, large enough to affect the layout in a way that contributes to the site message, but small enough to leave room for text and (preferably) some white space, which lends elegance to the design.
• File size – No screen (unless it is an HDMI or other high-resolution screen) is going to have a larger resolution than 72 dpi. This means that all images should be "optimized" to this resolution, which will keep file sizes low and reduce the time it takes for the browser to load the page.

Listen to the Client

Above all, when creating custom website content, listen to what the client hopes to actually accomplish with the site, and focus the design towards that end. If it works, it will be beautiful, and if it doesn't, no amount of design finesse will make it worth the investment. Taking the time to communicate and plan before a computer is ever fired up will result in the best website possible, regardless of the client.