Content marketing and website design are closely interrelated, and that's a fact. Only when content creators and web developers work together, they can create a worthy product – a website, which runs smoothly.
In this article, you will find tips and tricks, which will help you to match your marketing strategy with design. If you follow the recommendations given, you will take your site to the next level.
Set goals and select a suitable platform
First of all, you should outline your content marketing strategic plan. You should decide what type of content you will produce and in which quantities.
Your task is to set clear marketing goals and find out what type of website you actually need. Do you want to showcase one single product? Create a one-page website.
Are you planning to run a blog and produce tons of content every day? Create a multipage well-structured website.
Depending on your needs, you may start building your website using the following popular platforms:
Modern content marketing strategy must be based on three UX principles: clarity, consistency, and usefulness. Yep, today it’s not enough to make your content interesting, informative and relevant. It’s also important to match it with the overall concept of the UX design.
When you craft content for your website, you should follow these simple rules:
Keep sentences short
Break blocks of text into paragraphs
Use active voice instead of passive voice
Stick to present tense
Avoid using jargon and rarely-used words
Highlight the most important points using italic or bold font
Pay attention to content translation and localization
Do you want to develop an effective website for diverse international users? If your answer is “yes”, then you should take content translation and localization seriously.
The simplest way to change the language of your website is to embed an auto-translate plugin or utilize Microsoft Translator Widget. But the problem is that if you translate your content automatically, it will sound impersonal. Even worse, some of your ideas will be misinterpreted because of poor translation.
But in fact, there is no need to translate the whole site. It's enough to translate core content. You just need to create a separate section of your current website, add new items to the main menu and name them correctly: Español, Portugués, Русский, etc. In other words, you should create a place, where you will publish localized content for non-English speakers.
If you want to avoid problems, you should better delegate localization to the professionals in the field. You may visit PickWriters, a translation review website, and choose the most reliable service.
Choose an appropriate color scheme
The color scheme of you your website is an important element of the design. Naturally, the shades choice should also match your content marketing strategy. For instance, if you are going to use a red font on a black background, make sure that text will be readable.
The bad color and font choice hurt users’ eyes and scare them away from your website. It results in an increase in bounce rate and, as a consequence, lowering chances to get your site to the top of search results.
Keep in mind that you should also analyze whether the chosen color scheme will fit visual content. For instance, if you create a portfolio website for a photographer, who shoots in black and white, you can’t use green-and-pink background. It will look weird and incongruous.
Compress images
In the past few years, everyone talks about the importance of visual content. And it’s not a surprise that content managers tend to overuse big media files such as high-resolution images and videos.
The issue is that websites, which contain a bunch of visuals, load slowly. And it irritates the impatient users. Modern people don’t want to wait more than three seconds to see the whole page, so they leave a website and never revisit it.
The major task of web designers is to compress heavy files to make them usable. It’s the easiest way to boost load speed and retain visitors on the page.
Create a chatbot
Today, chatbots can perform lots of different functions, including content distribution and delivery. If your site is overloaded with tons of content, you may create a chatbot, which will guide visitors through your website.
When working on this task, it’s really important to coordinate actions of content creators and web designers. It’s necessary to make sure that they understand each other needs and work towards the common goal. Only matching content marketing to web development, it’s possible to create a bot, which will work effectively.
Put mobile users first
The volume of mobile traffic is growing, and it has already surpassed a share of desktop traffic. Naturally, most web designers are aware of this trend. They use responsive designs to ensure that mobile users will not experience any difficulties while surfing the pages using their smartphones.
There is no room for doubt that that responsive web design is a great solution for most websites. However, it's not the best solution for content heavy sites.
If you publish lots of videos, photos, and article daily, you should better choose a mobile-first design. It's the only way to ensure that your website will load fast and runs smoothly on smartphones and tablets.
The great news is that mobile-friendliness is one of the most important criteria of Google ranking. So if you choose this type of design, you will increase chances to get your website to the top of Google search.
In conclusion
As you can see, content marketing and web design always go hand in hand. And you can’t ignore this fact. Try to apply the advice given, and results of your hard work will positively surprise you.
And remember one important thing. If you have a lack of knowledge in content marketing, don’t hesitate to get professional assistance. Let a marketing guru guide you through the content creation process, so you will be able to design an outstanding site.
If there is one thing all businesses need in the current digital age, it is quality content. If you do not have the capacity to produce this in-house, you are going to need to use a content marketing agency. It does not matter what approach you use, so long as the end result is content that is engaging, interesting, and optimised for search engine success. You won’t be able to have a good online presence if you don’t have great content.
Content marketing services are successful because they engage with a clear target audience; those who are likely to purchase your products. This is why they are one of the best approaches if you are looking to take your channel marketing strategy to the next level. It’s also effective because in comparison to the likes of e-mail spamming and TV adverts it is a non-interruption form of marketing. You’re not telling the viewer they need to buy your products. Instead, you are giving them the information they require in order to make informed decisions regarding the type of things you sell. The aim being that this intelligence will lead them to purchase from your site. Of course, this means that quality content is imperative for this strategy to work. This is especially the case when you take into account the stringent ranking criteria Google have put into place with Panda and Penguin updates. Poor quality content is picked up on and instantly ranked lower. Gone are the days whereby you could simply duplicate content and stuff it with keywords to get to the top of Google. If you do this, your site will end up being punished, therefore, having an extremely detrimental impact on your overall presence. Therefore, don’t settle for anything less than the best when choosing your content marketing agency or indeed writing your own content.
Choose a good content marketing agency
Using a content marketing agency allows you to increase the level of trust between yourself and the customer. Search engines love quality content. They will rank you higher up on their pages. And those websites which feature on the first page of Google (especially the first three results) are always deemed to be more trustworthy by the searcher. Statistics back this up too. Content Plus state that 63 per cent of customers trust blogs over magazines when it comes to being given direction over purchasing. Content marketing services will help you to generate more traffic through increased visibility. You get a bigger slice of the online pie. And it doesn’t take rocket science to work out why. After all, you will be generating more pages and more links. A company with a blog will receive more inbound links than others and in-turn more site visitors too.
The statistics back up the argument
Research shows that the consumer prefers content marketing too. Seven in ten people would prefer to get to know a business through articles rather than advertising. In fact, quality content is ranked in the top three reasons as to why individuals follow brands on Twitter. Your brand awareness will evidently soar through quality SEO content marketing services. Every piece of content published works to increase brand recognition and identity. The content you post must match in with your brand and the products or services you sell. If it is informative, engaging, enjoyable and creative then your target customer base will be thoroughly impressed. You will gain more and more relevant followers and customers for your business. The content marketing agency will not only ensure that the articles are relevant to your company but they will be posted in the right places too.
As you can see, the case for content marketing is a very strong one and it is something you simply cannot afford to ignore in the current day and age. If you do not have quality content, you are only going to fall behind the competition. If you do not have the capacity to create this in-house, it is certainly worth looking for a company that can provide it for you, but make sure you choose with care. Read reviews to get a good understanding.
Graphic design is a booster that makes bad content good and good content grow even more amazing. So what if the infographic is poorly written, good visual appeal will make much difference to it. Similarly, if it’s excellently written, with good grammar and clever content management, good graphic support will do wonders.
Content strategies keep on evolving, and the graphic trends also come and go with time. What matters, is a good foundation. If you lay a foundation that is strong and equally appealing, there’s a 100% chance your website will grow in ranks and rates, both. Here are some ways in which graphic design can improve your website’s credibility:
Your reputation:
There was once a time when the British Petroleum Jelly company changed their logo to yellow and green. Due to the same logo and a difference of color, we thought it’s just a branding change.
However, when British Petroleum Jelly stated that it is solely because they care for the environment, that’s where the game began. Even if they don’t do anything about it, they successfully molded the perception of their audience. This will now grow in their favor and will increase the sales of their product.
It doesn’t matter if you run an ecommerce website design company or a finance blog; when your website is inviting visitors, it should look presentable. What you can control is their way to see your website, which automatically increases its credibility.
Grasping attention:
If you present something to someone that is well-designed, it will get you the desired attention because of its features. The presentation criteria will do the job effortlessly. There’s a 30% chance that a person would buy a shoe because of its features and 70% chance that they would select it by its design. For example, the ‘shop the gram’ section on this online leather jacket store is excellent. It makes you want to buy the product right away!
Source
So if your website is displaying products, hire a good graphic designer. This person will invest the energy in making each aspect of your website look presentable. Sometimes the thing that amazes the user more is the design of the website rather than the content. If it appeals to them and pleases their aesthetic sense, then there’s a high chance they would spend a lot of time on it. They will be roaming around its sub-pages to get more and more of the creative presentation.
Professional outlook:
If you’re being visited by critiques, you’d want them to shower positive criticism only. This can come with your presentation technique. Effective graphic designing earns your site professionalism. If the appearance of the site is professional and complete, visitors will automatically consider your content as genuine.
People get attracted to sites that keep a very professional approach towards the visits and dealing techniques. They will never know about your content unless you appeal them in some sort by the overall design of your site. It’s not very easy to end up on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Most of the task depends on your graphic designing capabilities and the content as well.
Navigational ease:
Nobody stays on a site that’s puzzling and jumbled up. It mainly consists of the top bar that the users see at any website’s home page. Now, they know the features and ease of access that they can get via that single bar. It is a lot more convenient to find the desired navigational section from the top bar than typing their need in the search bar. It should, therefore, be so designed that even age restriction won’t stop a user from accessing freely.
When you read a book, you go from top to bottom while going from left to right. Easy, right? So is the website pattern. You go the same way when you’re going through the content on a site. Apply this fundamental rule when you’re adding text to your site. The more important and accurate information should be purposefully kept at the top left. That’s where your visitor starts the navigation. And that’s exactly where you see a little con on most of the sites that open the tab to a navigation bar.
Competitors:
There are so many websites presenting nearly the same content or are of the same genre as your site. They shall always be your competitors and so would their strategies. Keep up with their progress. Think out of the box to create a layout and attraction at your site that keeps on getting audience inflow. Now that they’d be evaluating your progress as well, so hire a graphic designing team that constantly makes changes according to the current-day advancements.
Shaping concepts:
There’s a big chance that someone who does not understand a certain content at your site easily comprehends it via an image. Sometimes, the display of content is so convenient to read that the user automatically gets the whole point behind it. In this way, you provide the users with ease of access and usability.
This in turn smoothly increases the credibility of your site. If the image usage and the overall design is satisfactory, you will simultaneously be conversing with brans of people, at a personal level. That’s a catch because, with the modernization and advancement of technology, there’s a demand of perfection that you have to fulfill. This comes with the good or bad reviews that a visitor pays you off over time.
Verdict:
We know that this is a digital age. Pleasing digital audience is more of a requirement now. Most of the businesses run on the level of the need of their customers, so should be the case with any website. Your ranks and credibility depend directly on your excellent performance. This will only be provided through a user-friendly environment.
A well-managed website is an asset to rely on. You are building relationships through it. When your visitor decides to trust you, they’d avail all the services and offers that you propose. Invest correct time, energy and brains in creating a website that is well designed graphically to meet the present-day needs.
Author Bio:
About Ashley Rosa: Ashley Rosa is a freelance writer and blogger. As writing is her passion that why she loves to write articles related to the latest trends in technology and sometimes on health-tech as well. She is crazy about chocolates. You can find her at twitter: @ashrosa2.
Wait it’s time to move already? It seems like only yesterday
when our group was sitting together in the meeting room and started their
official financial career. There are many opportunities, smiles and disappointments
after facing which you are going to move. It can actually be great for you as a
company but moving has its own challenges and that’s what we are going to
discuss today. The best part is that moving offices means business expansion
and this is what every business dreams of at their startup. Let’ have a look at
some of the challenges that are involved in moving offices.
Loss In Productivity
It doesn’t matter how big you are as a team. When it comes
to moving, eveweswqn a team of 8 can be unable to do an activity that involves
productivity. Moving cannot be done in a single day, which is why you can have
an estimate of 2 days for packing, moving and unpacking everything that your
previous office had. Having to deal with all of this stuff can prove to be a
real challenge for the business. It can result in loss of productivity right
after moving.
Planning The Space
Before you move into
your new office make sure that you have done thorough planning of the space. It
is better to find a spot where all the
connections will be installed. You should have an idea where all the
electronics will be installed such as television,
computers, printers and everything that requires an electronic connection.
Other than this, fix a spot where all your files will be stored and don’t
forget to mark the space for your desks. Doing so will save you time and if due to one reason or another
you fail to do this, get ready to face the biggest challenges of all.
Lack Of Coordination
Another challenge that will be coming your way after moving
is lack of coordination. You should know how to pack up your office for the
last time and also how to unpack. There should be a fixed schedule of when all
the items will leave and arrive at your new office. Make sure you listen to all
your employees because each and every one of them will have a new idea in their
mind that could make the process easier. Moving can involve a lot of headaches when your mind is not in the right
place and you are literally taking that out on everyone. So make sure that you
are on the same page with everyone else at your office.
Make sure to check out https://www.mybekins.com/movers and https://heatline.com/paladin-for-pipe. They offer amazing services that can help you while you’re moving. Sometimes what an office need are a helping hand and these two companies will make sure that you get a lot of them. So make sure to try them out before you start doing everything on your own and make a mess out of it.
Ever since the advent of mobile apps,
businesses have been trying to integrate them into the formal economy. Be it
shopping, gaming, or simply reading the digital version of newspapers,
everything that was initially available on the internet was pushed into the
mobile domain for wider reach out. And while that strategy has had excellent
results, they have in the process created a whole new segment of services
commonly referred to as On-demand economy. These highly diverse set of services
are combined worth hundreds of billions of dollars and perhaps more
importantly, feature the fastest growth rate among other established
industries.
Transit & transportation
Uber is currently the most valuable startup in
the world but represents more than just a company. It’s a concept that’s
literally reinvented the on-demand economy. It’s not that people didn’t call
cabs before Uber but the process wasn’t nearly as fluid, ubiquitous, and
cost-effective. With a decentralized model built on top of the power of
mobility, the company changed the shape of transportation as we knew it. Today,
virtually every major city in the world has some kind of Uber-like service with
billions of trips completed every year. For cabs and motorbikes to scooters and
helicopters, there is now an Uber-like service for almost every mode of
transportation.
Hospitality
What Uber is to transportation, Airbnb is to
hospitality. Currently valued higher than any hotel chain, hospitality accounts
for a large chunk of the on-demand economy. Also, amidst all the on-demand
services infamous for running losses, it is one of the selected few that
actually turn profits.
Food & hyperlocal delivery
This is currently the most heated space of the on-demand economy with dozens of food delivery apps competing to gain dominance in their respective markets. Apps like UberEats, GrubHub, Just Eat, Zomato, among others have all multi-billion dollar valuations but the market is still far from saturated. Additionally, as those startups build their logistics network, they consistently experimenting with new business avenues like hyperlocal deliveries that are yet to take off in large parts but is evaluated to have massive potential.
Gig economy
The term “gig economy” has gained quite a
traction in recent times and if you have ever been confused about its meaning,
that’s not entirely your fault. It encompasses a whole array of on-demand
services with little in common except they are hired for small or fixed tasks
or “gigs” as they are commonly called. Be it laundry, plumber, carpenter, web
designer, architect, legal consultant, or virtually any professional service,
there are countless on-demand mobile app solutions that deliver such services.
Given the immense diversity involved, it is tough to accurately measure the size
of this segment but by some estimates, they are worth tens of billions of
dollars.
Audio and Video streaming
This is by far the largest segment of the
on-demand economy. For instance, Netflix alone is the second largest media
company in the world and if you add to it other popular platforms like Prime
Video, Hulu, HBO Now, among a host of other on-demand video streaming
platforms, it can be easily argued to be the growth engine for the on-demand
economy. Further, with the proliferation of music streaming giants like
Spotify, Apple Music, etc., the segment is branching in all aspects of media
consumption.
If you are looking to acquire a piece of that
massive economy through your own on-demand mobile app solution, the first thing
you’d need is a clear strategy into which segment you are going to target.
Secondly, you would need an expert mobile app development agency to get your
plans running on the ground through intuitive mobile solutions.
