Chicken or the egg? Or in the case of a new website, is it design or content first?
A great design is nothing without content.
Amazing content is flat without good design.
They go together like peas and carrots.
At Sites by Geeks, we’re on the side of content first in this debate.
Content is the foundation of a website.
When you’re planning and producing content, you should be considering your audience and creating the personality for your business with them in mind. The voice and tone you create will help drive the design. Trying to fit the voice to a prepared design can be a challenge. It might end up feeling forced and unnatural to you.
Content is queen, after all. The job of the design is to help communicate the message of the content. How does a designer know what you’re trying to communicate if they haven’t been given that message yet?
This doesn’t mean all your content and graphics need to be set in stone before you begin on the design. It just means there should be a rough draft so that the framework of a layout can be crafted around it. It’s difficult to know the right layout for a page if we don’t know if it’s a paragraph, an instructional video, an image, or a top ten list. In our experience, this leads to more revisions because assumptions will be made. And you know what happens when one assumes…
We’re not saying this is the only way to do it. We’re just saying it’s our preferred way so if you’re thinking about reaching out to us, you might want to start considering your content now.
We’d be happy to help with it. We look forward to hearing from you.