The Marriage of Design and Copy

We are gathered here today to join together … your web copy and web site design. The pairing really is like a marriage. They must spend their lives together, endure unforeseen changes in each other, for better or worse, and they must work together to make the marriage successful.

But how do you know if the marriage will work? Like any marriage, you don’t, but you trust that, with a little effort, it will. That effort means something more than just pluncking down hastily written copy on a web page template and posting it to your site.

Your web design should enhance your copy and your copy should enhance your design. Design improves copy when it highlights the copy and makes it easier to consume. Copy improves design when it gives meaning to design elements that are otherwise just decoration.

To make the marriage work, your designer and copywriter must work together; both understanding your key messages, the purpose of the site and your target audience(s).

If one must flow from the other, write your copy first. In the end, it’s your copy that compels action, at least most often, and its tone and direction will be the cue for your design. (Yes, I am a copywriter.)

However it happens, it is important for your business that the union of design and copy is a happy one. Happy design/copy marriages are fruitful and produce lots of little clicks on your call-to-action.

Bad marriages? No clicks.

By Stephen Da Cambra

Insight on Web Sites

As web 2.0 matures, hopefully we start designing and building more useful web sites and fewer flashy web sites designed under the false impression that, the cooler it looks, the more successful it will be.

Fortunately, Web 2.0 is not a beauty contest.  Building a “flashy” site, quite literally a site with lots of Flash animation and slim on content, is not the way to have a site that attracts and converts visitors.  Your web visitors are looking for information; a reason to buy from you, and flash animations rarely pull those triggers.

If you need a “Skip Intro” option when visitors first land on your web site, it is your site that should skip the intro - get rid of the hurdle and land visitors in the most appropriate place on your site for what they need, where you can begin to convert them into paying customers.

If you are designing a new site and your web developer wants to use major Flash animations, stop now, cancel the contract, pay what you need to get out, then do so as soon as possible. 

WSI has just launched our new site web site and, as we do with all the sites we create, we aim to increase traffic to our site, improve the conversion rates for that traffic and measure all our results so that we can constantly improve them.  If that all sounds like a sales line, it is.  It is exactly what we do for our clients.  Check out our site.  It’s clean and clear, but it is not the slickest thing you will ever see and we intended it that way.

The goal of any web site design should be to convey the message(s) of the site as quickly and cleanly as possible.  There's nothing wrong with an attractive site , they are better than ugly sites, but don't let the good looks interfere with the flow of information.

By Stephen Da Cambra