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Whatever your profession is, you deserve a top-notch website. And if you are just starting out, we know that the process can be a bit overwhelming. So overwhelming in fact, that people often overlook the importance of one important aspect of every great website.

The foundations of every website that deserves our attention are appealing and functional design and appropriate copy.

Though the process behind the both of those is considerably elaborate, the surface is summed up in web design and copywriting. Each member of a team working on your website has an important role that serves the purpose of creating either of the two.

Developers are there to bring the designer’s ideas to life and SEO specialists are there to do their magic and let us writers know in which direction to pour our creative juices.

Together we all work on creating a harmony between copy and design that will make our final product worth your time and money. It’s important to notice that neither of the two hold the priority over the other. They are equally important and require equal amount of effort.

Design versus Copy

Credit: Stephen Harber, theonlywriterever.com

I have to admit, I struggled for a while before I found a good parallel that would help me get the point across in this post. I ended up staring at a pile of books by my desk when it hit me:

What was the last play you’ve read? Not seen, but actually read. For me, it was “A Streetcar Named Desire”. I first read the piece and then watched the 1951 movie adaptation featuring Marlon Brando. After I was done, I didn’t know why I wasted 24 years not watching this classic.

Even though I was smitten by the play, it was not until I saw the actual adaptation that I fully grasped the raw and sensitive core of it all.

Maybe it was my lack of experience in the area, but my brain wouldn’t wrap around the idea entirely on its own. I needed that visual aspect to fully enjoy what the play had to offer. That’s how it usually goes with the plays. While the message can come across the written word, you need the actors, the setting, the lights in order to appreciate the work in its entirety.

The case is not the same with novels but, as plays are meant to be adapted, it’s only with the adaptation that you get the full experience.

Credit: Pixabay

Alternatively, if you had the stage, the actors, and the lights in front of you, but there was no dialog, you would probably leave the theatre without the slightest idea of what you’ve seen. The message would never come across without the actual dialog.

Something similar happens when you are creating a website for your business. Your copy is meant to be incorporated in the design.

You can create the most beautiful layout. It can be flashy, it can be minimalist, it can have perfect loading time and amazing visuals to accompany the design. Still, it would all be in vain without the appropriate copy.

In the similar manner, you could have someone like Neil Patel write the copy for your website and it wouldn’t matter much if your website is looking crappy.

What is it that you do first, then?

I know, it’s the single most overused gif ever. Thanks, Imgur!

“Do you first prepare the copy or design?”

“How can I prepare copy if I don’t know what my website will look like?”

“Isn’t it simpler to first design and then just add the text where needed?”

These are some of the questions swarming around your head right now if you’re planning on hiring someone to design a website for you.

You would be surprised by how many times a small business owners start making plans about a website without even realising that copywriting is a part of the same process and something they definitely need to look into.

But in which order?

If your business needs a website (and every business today does), you need to know what you’re expecting from it. We talked a bit more about that in one of our previous posts. Once you know what you need, you’ll know what is the message that a copywriter should present to your potential customers. And that message is the reason you’re creating a website in the first place.

Understand their purpose

While copywriting serves to catch the attention of your visitor, the design of your website is what makes the visitor stay. The design will make your copy more prominent in the right places, emphasising the most relevant points.

It will also offer visual stimuli to make the entire experience more appealing. Of course, there are important design features that are not only dealing with the form but also functionality, like good navigation and good placement of calls to action.

What does that all mean? That means that you can’t start the process of designing if you have no idea what the copy of your website should look like. But it also means that you can’t start writing the copy if you don’t have the slightest idea about what elements the website should have.

Both copy and design are something that needs to be developed in phases. Once the designers have a basic outline of what is expected, they can create a picture in their mind of what it could look like and start working around it. So have the first, very rough draft of the copy ready for your designer. Or at least a very detailed brief that will point him in the right direction.

Lorem ipsum

While some say lorem ipsum is a convenient solution, the right word would be ‘lazy’. It takes very little time to incorporate in the design, and it leaves the designers more freedom with the layout, but does it actually help the process?

Lazy solution isn’t always a good solution.

Not really: If your web design agency uses lorem ipsum during the entire process and leaves it up to you to add the copy later on, the equality between design and copy we talked about above will be lost.

The focus of your website will be on aesthetics and not on the message and the impression you are trying to leave on your visitors.

To go back to our previous metaphor: It would be as if you used a script of another playwright to prepare the stage and costumes, cast the actors, and rehearse; and only to write your own script a week before the big premier.

Doesn’t seem quite right, don’t it?

Meaning that lorem ipsum doesn’t actually help the process, it only makes it a bit more complex. If, once you decide to add the copy to your website, you notice that the words don’t quite fit the design, you will either have to alter the copy or make the designer alter what was supposed to be the final version of the design.

If you alter the copy, you might won’t be able to get the point across and leave the impression that you wanted. And you might even realise by the end of the process that what your copywriter and your designer had in mind weren’t quite the same things, which prolongs the launch of your final product.

What if my web design agency doesn’t offer copywriting services?

Not every web design agency offers the services of creating copy, just like not every marketing agency offers the service of web design. But that is not something you should necessarily base your decision on when choosing with whom to work.

Agencies specialised solely in web design and web development most often have someone they can recommend based on their previous experience. Even if they don’t, those who know what they’re doing will gladly work along the side of a copywriter you choose, because they value your product, the time, and the effort it takes to launch a website.

When reversed, this can be a good filtering method when you’re hiring a web design agency: If they insist on working solely with lorem ipsum, simply don’t hire them!

If you have any questions about our process of designing a website, leave them hire or on any of our social media channels.

Until next Monday!