When web design comes to a standstill

When I create a new web design for a client the design always comes to a standstill when I get to the content aspect of the web design. Content is something that i need time to prepare and to format into the web design. there are two ways to approach content, write it your self, or get the client to write it. The first is probably the fastest, but having the client provide the content for the web design is the most efficient. A web design is not complete until it is fully populated with content, unless the new web design uses a CMS, then your after the design, your job is done.

Sometimes the client is too busy, or doesn't place priority on the content of the new web design in order to provide the proper amount of content for you. In this case you have to write it yourself. When writing content for a new web design, with limited SEO in mind, you have to do a lot of research on the company and industry. A great place to start is the previous web design, if they had one. Another is to get any brochures or materials the company may have and use that material for the new web design. Lastly, and most in effective, is to perform a search on the company. Pull up any old press releases the company may have created, or any business plan proposals by the company.

You may want to consider an online form for the client to fill out with 20 or so key questions that encompass all the pages from the new web design. These questions could lead you in the right direction when you are researching the material for the web design. Online questionnaires seem to work better than email because the clients feel it is another step in the start-up of the web design. Emails tend to get put on the back burner and forgotten as more come in.

Content approval is an essential part of the web design process, especially if you no nothing about the industry. Send a copy of the content to the client via email and have them look at it. Also post the content on the web design on a testing server and send a link to the page for review. Always give the client 2 options, this will increase your odds of having the content approved faster.

When a client gives you content for a web design, never blindly copy and paste the content onto the web design. Always proof the material before publishing it. After you place the content on the web design, step back and make sure it looks OK. You may have to reformat some text and add line breaks to make it flow better with the design.

Remember the web is still a visual media, grab some stock photography and float it in large bodies of content to keep the reader moving down the page. Place images in the seems so the readers will scroll to the rest of the content.

I have run into many clients that think content is just for the search engines and that it doesn't help with sales. This may be true, but the web design is not complete until you have populated it with enough content to satisfy the search engines. Even if you are not a SEO specialist, as a web designer it is your job to get the web site indexed and crawled at least a few times.

Next time you take on a project form someone who "wants a web design", start planning the content from the beginning and try to write as much as you possibly can. If you write content for the web design, many times the client will want it changed, and by the web designer providing a backbone it will make the content part of the design more of an editorial job for the client. A little initiative on the web designers part can go a long way.