The Most Difficult Part of a Web Design Project Isn’t What You Think (It’s Content)

Have you ever looked at fonts. Like really looked at them? Have you ever tried to determine how happy or sad a font is? How active or passive?

What about colors? Do you think that blue or green is more calming? Are shades better than tints?

Layouts are challenging too. There are all of these rules about composition but how can we apply these rules to website design considering they way in which our websites are being accessed at so many screen sizes? How can layout be functional, beautiful, and also responsive?

These questions are really tough.

But these website design challenges are not even half as difficult as content.

Kelly Goto, author of Web ReDesign 2.0, said that receiving client content, and on time is, “perhaps the most difficult and least-predictable part of any web project.” And we’re going to discuss why content is so difficult and what to do about it.

Reasons Why Content Is Difficult

If you’ve not had a website before or even if you have, preparing and editing content can be a much bigger, much more complicated task than you anticipated. Some reasons why content is more may be difficult than you think:

It’s difficult to get clarity around what you’re doing in your practice.

Writing your website’s content is difficult even if you know who you serve and how but without knowing these essentials, the challenge is increased exponentially. Knowing your audience and having the ability to reach them empathetically is so important as a guide for writing your website content.

Estimating the amount of content you need is tough.

A website isn’t just an about page and home page and services page. There are so many bits and pieces of content to take into consideration. Here are some pages and types of content that you might have forgotten about:

• FAQ page
• Contact page
• CTAs for every page
• CTAs after every blog post
• Copy for your newsletter optin forms
• Blog posts
• Privacy Policy, legal disclaimer, terms of services pages
• And there may be more, depending on your specific website

Perfection is unattainable, but that doesn’t mean it feels ok to put content out there that is just “ok” or “good”

Many times we may already have some content written but it may not be as polished as we want it to be. Rather than move forward with content that doesn’t “feel perfect yet”, we agonize over the details, sleep on it for one more night, and then another. And then work on it. And then get frustrated. And then work some more. This type of content perfectionism can be overcome.

Content is abundant, too abundant.

If you have too much content, it’s hard to get it organized. You get attached to the way it is, because you invested a lot of time into writing it and then you feel like you don’t want to edit things down (although you know that no one is going to read a 5000 word home page).

Organizing content is hard.

Sometimes it’s not only an issue of writing content but also an issue of organizing content. It may become a difficult thing to strategize. Some examples of questions that come up are:

• Should I put resources and worksheets onto a separate page or should they be included in blog posts?
• Should I use pdfs or include content on-page or in a website form?
• What should I do with videos? Where should they go? Should I write a post to go with each video?
• What questions should I put on an FAQ page? And which ones on a services page?
• What about the 7 day challenge I’m doing in March? Does that need it’s own page?
• What about my events and workshops? Do I need one page per workshop or an archive of all of them on one page?
• And more, so many more! (Especially if you have varied types of content for content marketing and being generous and helpful and awesome)

Web designers don’t write content.

Design is not writing, it’s design. Design is not organizing your website content, it’s design. Design is not editing your content, it’s design.

Web designers design websites.

It can come as a surprise that website design does not automatically include content services and sometimes website design clients have not planned for the time needed to prepare content or have it prepared for them. If you need help with your website content, you ought to hire a copywriter as this is a separate area of specialization. Some web designers will also include content services or copywriting if they are qualified to do so but a design package alone will typically not include services outside of design.

How Content Fits Into Design Projects

A custom website design is specially made for you. Asking a website designer to design a website without content is like asking a tailor to sew suit without having measurements. A custom suit has to fit the body of the client just like the website has to suit the strategy and content of the web design client.

Another myth that must be busted then is the myth that a website is just a pretty container. A website, a custom website, is a lot more than that.

In order for a design project to start, the content needs to be in the designer’s hands along with any other information that may inform the direction of the design. For me, as a designer, I work off of content, conversion strategy, and the empathy and compassion I have for your ideal client.

However, every designer is a bit different when it comes to these additional items they need in order to design. The one item that is in common with every single web designer I know is to have content before designing.

For the best design results, content needs to be delivered to your designer before they start designing.

What You Can Do

In order to get your website content under control, there are pretty much three approaches you can take (that I’m sure you already know about):

1. Do it yourself, or DIY. Use a service like Empathycopy which asks you a series of questions to help you draft your copy easily. Or spend the time, do the research, and take the courses necessary to get clear on who you serve and how and then write your website content.
2. Have it done for you, or DFY. Hire a private practice coach for ultimate clarity followed by a copywriter for writing content.
3. A combination of these things. You may be pretty clear on your practice but not be able to write or you might be able to write better once you have more clarity on who you serve and what you do. So you may be able to find a combination of DIY and DFY. You also don’t need to hire someone for everything in a process. For instance, instead of going for the full package a copywriter offers, you may also benefit from just an hour or two of editing or feedback on what you’ve written.

DIY: You Will Need Two Months Or More To Write Your Website

If you are planning on going the DIY route, plan for two months or more to write your website copy. Here’s a simple example walking you through how I came up with that estimation:

For most therapists, they could write a website page or post in about 4 hours if they are really really focused and clear.

So, let’s calculate how many pages you have to write, add a few more extra pages for a cushion and then also figure in other bits of content here and there like calls to action in your header to accompany a phone number or the heading for your location widget.

Here’s some fun math! Let’s count each of these items as one page:

• Home
• About
• Service Page 1
• Service Page 2
• Service Page 3
• FAQ page
• Contact Page
• Newsletter optin, Header, Footer, bits of copy
• Legal disclaimer page

That’s 9 “pages” worth of content.

Let’s add 5 blog posts to that. Making it 14 pages.

If each page or post takes you around 4 hours from first draft to polished final draft, 4 hours per post x 14 pages to write = 56 hours.

If you can only fit in 4 hours a week, it will take you 14 weeks or 3.5 months.

If you push yourself and fit in 6 hours a week, it will take you a over two months.

This estimate does not include: gaining necessary clarity around your niche and services, finding images, research, training, courses, breaks, or throwing your laptop on the floor in a temper tantrum because your about page is about 1 bazillion times more difficult to write than you thought (been there).

All of this to say, you may need more time than you think to write your website content yourself. Maybe even some extra, extra time for writing your therapist About Me page. Everyone varies with how quickly they can get through things too. You could be quicker, or less quick. Hopefully this example will help you plan accordingly.

DFY: One Month

The process of working with a talented copywriter is much less stressful than DIY but it still takes time as well.

For a complete service, like writing 4-6 pages of your website, I would plan for 3-4 weeks. The best copywriters will include an interview process and allow you to review their work. Getting your copy written is a collaboration to ensure they are capturing your voice as well as inspiring your website visitors into action.

Depending on the copywriter’s availability, they may be booked out for 1-2 months. You may also need to book your project with them in advance – so starting your project may not be immediate.

But the benefit is it still takes considerably less time and stress than a DIY option. Instead of staring at a blinking cursor, you can spend that time doing other business tasks or serving your clients. I always recommend hiring a copywriter. In fact, I have hired one myself for parts of the very website you are reading right now. It makes sense to do so if you have limited time for the millions of things you need to get done to build and market your private practice.

Your Web Design Project Will Be So Much More Awesome

If you take the time and energy needed to build your content on a clear foundation of what your practice does and then move into a design project with your clarity and content in-hand, you will be so much better off! You will have what you need to have to enable the process to be easy and smooth.

What do you think? If you are entering into a website design project for the first time, had you considered that web design relies so heavily on things like content and clarity around services? If you’ve already had a website up, did you find it difficult or easy to get all of the content out there?

I would love to know what you think! You can send me a note or tweet me at any time. I love hearing from you guys.