How To Plan Your Website Content + FREE Worksheets
Start With:
What is the Purpose of your Website?
Ask yourself what the purpose of your website actually is – you can choose multiple, but a maximum of 3 should be enough to keep a strong focus on hitting these purposes.
Examples:
Promotional - more text heavy, aimed at helping customers learn more about you and your products and history.
Educational - teach your audience something, more resource/blog post heavy, instructional language.
To sell products and/or services - Feature products and items, use language to market and sell, image-heavy.
Motivational - Inspire customers to do something, language use is more uplifting/ guiding, resource and blog heavy.
Functional - Provide access to business services, online quotes, view order status, submit application.
Engagement - Provide a place for customers to interact with your business, bloglike, submit questions etc.
Informational - Provide information to current and potential customers, an overall look at your business and where to find you
Entertainment - E.g. online magazines, movies, the arts. Easy to navigate, frequently updated, engaging by using dynamic content, such as videos, Podcasts, slideshows, etc
What Are Your Website Goals?
You can choose multiple, but a maximum of 3 should be enough to keep a strong focus on hitting these goals. Your site purpose and goals help inform how we structure the website. It should also help inform how you should be writing your content (tone, message, purpose), and what sort of imagery you might need.
Examples:
Increase sales - Search engine optimization, well-organized content, user-friendly site, effective calls to action, increase conversion rate.
Becoming an authoritative resource (an expert in your field where people go for help/information) - Providing quality content on your website, regularly adding new information, establishing trust, marketing your site on other websites and social media.
Improve interaction with existing and potential customers - Email marketing lists, online support (live chat), webinars, and content designed to give your visitor a reason to come back.
Build your brand - Active social media program, promotions, reputation management.
Increase your leads (traffic/engagement/email capture) - Clearly communicated content, consistently updated, search engine optimization, user-friendly site, effective calls to action, consistent sections for users to get in touch/contact/signup.
Identifying Your Target Audience
This can differ from your main audience if your website serves a different purpose, such as selling, or being more informational. What sort of people do you want to be looking at your site and engaging with it?
Find Your Inspiration
This exercise will help you, your copywriter and your website designer really visualise your ideas for your new site. Start by finding whole website or snippets of website sections that just speak to you visually OR you like the way they work.
Another great idea is to find examples of websites or designs you DON’T like and make a note of them, just for a well-balanced visual idea.
Decide on Your Page Navigation
Your website will be mobile-responsive, but that doesn’t mean you should have a tonne of
pages in your navigation as it will be hard for your users to navigate. I suggest limiting it to about 6 main navigation titles and any more can go into a drop-down folder (i.e. an ‘About’ folder could contain ‘About Us’, ‘Our Process’ and ‘Our Values’ pages to store them neatly rather than an additional 3 pages in the main navigation.
Brainstorm and write out the page navigation titles you need, and any pages that will be under a main page.
Get Your Domain Information Sorted Early
A domain name is your website name and the address your audience can search and find your website with. A domain name can be any combination of letters and numbers, and it can be used in combination of the various domain name extensions, such as .com, .co.nz and more - and whatever you choose, it should be easy to remember and type out.
The domain name must be registered before you can use it, and it pays to purchase this early to save missing out.
Plan Your Homepage
Your homepage is sometimes the first touch point your audience has with your brand - so you want to make a great first impression! Your home page can usually be broken into sections (again, this will differ between every business) so start by thinking of what your TOP main points/messages/offering you want to showcase on this first critical page.
Plan Your About Page
Your About page can often become one of your most visited pages on your whole site, so now is the time to wow your audience (no pressure!). A good way to start is to envision your target audience and what THEY want to hear. If they are coming to you for your professional services, they may want to hear about your background/credentials/your story. If they are coming to buy actual products, they may want to know your Why, how you got started, the story behind the products.
First person or third person, it comes down to writing something engaging for your personal audience, leaving them inspired to buy/try your offerings or contact you for more.
Want prompts for all your site pages?
If you’ve been looking for a sign (or prompt!) for how to begin planning and writing your website content, I’ve got just the thing for you!
The Website Content Prompt Workbook is a comprehensive guide to planning your website content and can either be used as the foundations of writing your website content or is a great starting point to send to a copywriter if you do not have the time/skillset to write your own. It is born from the frustrations of both website designer AND client on how to both request and present well-planned website content and hit all the basics needed.
The idea is to use the workbook if you are planning your own content and use the prompts to help you identify what you want to add to your site and tips on how to send your content to your designer.
Below is a free download of a few page excerpts, as well as a link to the full workbook if you feel like purchasing the whole thing!
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Download the free workbook pages!
Content Prompt Workbook
Indesign template
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