Content and Web Design: How They Go Hand-in-Hand

When you do a quick Google search for web content and web design, you’re likely to find several articles comparing the two and you probably end up trying to identify which is more important one.

Which should come first when you’re building your website or doing your email marketing? Should you design first and just add in some content that fits your design? Or do you create your content first and just pattern your design around it?

If you’re a content writer VA or a graphic designer VA, or even a bit of both, trying to mesh the content of your client’s website with the design that they want can be tricky. There’s a constant power play between the two, and more often than not, one or the other emerges as the dominant one.

Content and Design Should Complement Each Other

It’s very important to remember that your content and your design should complement each other instead of competing against one another. If you are a content writer and you want to develop a strategy that will help boost your client’s website ranking in Google or if you want to create emails that actually convert, you need to work closely with your client’s graphic designer to ensure that their design and your content mesh well together.

The same thing is true if you’re the graphic designer. It’s important that you know what your client’s content manager is aiming for with their content strategy so that you can craft a design that helps it work better.

Developing a Content and Design Strategy

Whether you’re in the content side of things or the design side of things, you’re definitely going to have your own strategy. But on top of your own strategy, you also need to have a plan that involves both the content and design branches.

Here are some tips on developing a content and design strategy.

• Have a clear mission and goals.

It’s important that each member of both teams know and understand the mission and goals for your project so that your output can reflect that. It really helps unify the output when everyone is working towards a common goal.

• Have a structured work process.

You need to have specific steps in the design and content creation process so that neither the content nor the design team is floundering when it comes to who’s turn it is to work on a particular task or who to submit their output to for opinions, etc. This also helps everyone be more efficient and meet all their deadlines.

• Have regular brainstorming and feedback sharing sessions.

The key to working well together is maintaining an honest, open environment and ensuring constant communication. Scheduling weekly or monthly sessions to ensure that everyone’s on track, brainstorming new ideas, or just getting feedback on whatever you’re working on at the moment is really helpful.

When it comes to content and web design, it’s really important to have a system in place that allows each aspect of the digital marketing process to interact freely with each other and help each other successfully pursue their goals. Content and web design always go hand-in-hand, so content writers and graphic designers working closely together is essential.