The Great Debate: Content vs. Design

Via j3net (flickr)

I recently contributed to a conversation on LinkedIn that I think highlighted an age-old theme in online marketing.

A group member posted a request on a web development group thread requesting professional feedback on how to best improve his “brochure-site”.

He knew his site was old-fashioned and needed a facelift, but his main concern in doing so was that his site was not ranking well in the search engines and was not pulling in visitors and customers as he would like.

I was surprised to find the question in a web developer’s forum because it felt more like an SEO/Content question to me, but I waited a few days to make sure I wasn’t just missing something.

The professional coders did an excellent job of highlighting all the perceived faults with the site’s design, from blatant coding errors (meta tags and the like) to the relative heights of various boxes.

But, interestingly, the discussion of content was limited.  I jumped in with the following, which I thought approached the content-side of the question fairly comprehensively:

I’m not a coding web developer, but I am content creator who works primarily with online content, so my comments will only address the content side of things.

From an SEO perspective, you do need to be concerned with keywords, meta tags, etc. as noted above.  But, even more importantly in my book, you need to tell a compelling story.

See, you’re selling products to people, not to Google.  You’re hoping to maintain a solid reputation and impress people, not Google.

So, when you have content written, it needs to speak to people, first and foremost.  Then, and only then, should it be tweaked to be Google-friendly.

So, when thinking about content, think about your own expectations when visiting a website for the first time:

You want clear, concise information, attractively presented, in an interesting and informative way.  Information that feels relevant to YOU as an individual.

After reviewing what you have currently on the site, my main take-away is that it’s written in a stale, “just-the-facts” manner, offering the bare minimum to fill the space.

Since your company has been successfully serving customers for over 20 years, you’re obviously able to do what really counts: offer a great product at a fair price and make your customers happy.

Let that shine through in your content!

Include a bunch of testimonials from satisfied customers, video if possible!

Include more story-telling in your product listings to show how real people have had their lives and health improved by using the products.

Add a blog and start adding brief, informative articles and/or videos about the science of ergonomics.  These kinds of snippets make you appear as the experts you are, not to mention keeping customers on the site longer than they currently stay.

To summarize, think of your site as a virtual salesperson working in your store.
If a customer walked in, would a hard-working salesperson just stare at them, point them toward the products, and answer questions with the bare minimum specs necessary?

Hopefully not.

A great salesperson would woo the customer with all manner of fun, interesting and helpful conversation that would leave the customer feeling NOT buying the product would be a dumb decision.

That’s what your site content needs to do.

Not that I don’t think the design suggestions are important, they certainly are.  The site in question was pretty rough.  It probably gave some of those coders nightmares! 

But, when you get down to it, great content in a rough format will still outperform bad content no matter what the format.

So, if you’re interested in bringing paying customers through your virtual door, make sure you’re prioritizing properly.

Send to a Friend

Related posts:

1. Three Vital Content Marketing Lessons Rush Taught Me I happen to be a huge Rush fan. There.  I said it.  Razz me if you will. But the fact is, these guys have continued to inspire and impress me as a musician and music fan for over twenty years now. And what’s even more impressive is that they had already been doing that for ...keep reading...
2. Creating a Content Marketing Hurricane!   Content marketing is not an overnight-success strategy. One of the reasons it works so incredibly well is that, instead of touching down with brief bursts of power, then disappearing, like a tornado, it builds slowly and steadily like a hurricane. This, unfortunately, is where most small business owners and independents lose traction. It’s a ...keep reading...
3. The Secret Weapon of Content Marketing In the old James Bond flics (and every other cheesy spy movie based on them,) I absolutely love the point in the film when the evil villian reveals – in completely unnecessary and damning detail – to the seemingly helpless hero his plans to take over the world.  I especially love when he reveals his ...keep reading...