The importance of copywriting in web design

Designers often forget to focus on the design structure as much as writing copywriting to highlight the copy on the page. Today we will discuss why copywriting is so important, who should learn to master it, and how to do content-centric design.

Good design, poor copy

As designers, we naturally spend more time focusing on aesthetics. Attractive sites can fundamentally improve the site, and we are the most convinced of this concept.

We use the "Lorem ipsum" text typesetting builder to build our typesetting model, so we can go back and write something better when we have time. The deadline (and even ourselves) still has the potential to postpone the copy to the last second. Then, a variety of GTD procedures to inform us is the time to submit our work, we are in the beautiful works on the temporary rush to put some of the text, and then throw out. At the end of each page, even if the visual is not picky, but still see a lot of the copy of the ointment.

For most of us, how to program for us is simple, we are relying on excellent design growth and development of visual monsters. The problem, however, is that our neglect of the real copy causes our final product to be greatly affected and even more than the poor design. Unless your target market is a designer, most of your users don't talk about design with you. You tell them dribbble.com, they will be very strange, why someone will provide such a service.

Of course, they can often explain what is ugly and what is identical, just like we do, but only at an intuitive level. What they really care about is the overall sense of the site, whether it is fluent or cumbersome, and whether it is easy to operate. This is what the designers say, the excellent design is transparent. If your users are interested in the interface, it's probably because they hate the interface.

This transparent analogy also applies to copywriting on the web. It is worth mentioning that in fact, the average user in the reading and writing of the education is far more than the design, although still only a standard education products. For these users, we will call them "normal users" rather than our visual monsters, and browsing the Web is a reading experience for them. They focus on the reading of promotional ads and feature lists that involve services, rather than even the visual layout of the elements on the page. They would even prefer to hire such designers--what they would do with their own words. If you have a solid enough copy, 3lian.com, they don't care too much or have a lot of evaluations, and they're busy believing in the content of the copy.

The front or the reverse?

Here I would like to say that the key point is that the design and copy is a coin on the different sides, is inextricably linked to each other. Users are not simply looking at the design or the text, but looking at a website, a single integrated project is desirable or not.

One technique is to discard "text typesetting" as much as possible in the design process. If you don't have any concept of design goals, stop those designs. If the design has no copy, you can set aside a box before you know what to put in it. In other ways, you should consider the following sentence of Jeffrey Zeldman:

"Content prior to design. No design of the content that is not design, is decorated. ”

That's what I mean. Unless you are designed purely for design and do not involve some professional risk, the design should help to reinforce content messages, not the other way around.

As an experiment, in your next project you can try some of the content that should be displayed on the page first. Plus titles, copywriting, columns, little pendants, navigation, everything you can think of, don't bring design. The first is to put all the content up, once you have a good layout position, and then start to style. You can try different ways to compose, add some color, and make the page lively.

This design is not only more efficient, but also more innovative. The reason for being more efficient is that the entire structure of the page highlights and expresses your primary information. Obviously, because even at the beginning of the design process, you have to focus on structuring your message expression. It's a good idea to use a simple text editor so that you don't get distracted by the "looks" of text messages, but just focus on the reading.

Consider your target group above all else. Who do you want to read these messages? What have they got in this respect? Why isn't it always good enough? Of course, the most important question is: what sites do they want to use? Buy a product? Hire an employee? Wait a minute. We'll discuss these issues in a future article, and now we just need to know that this is a key issue for good marketing.

Finally, the above approach will produce more innovative designs because you are not using the sites you have seen as a starting point. You should solve a problem--instead of using someone else's design to put your design on the cloak. The question, of course, is how best to arrange and style what is already on the page. In the traditional approach, it is generally just that you purchased a pre-built template that involves filling content for predefined spaces. A better approach is to tailor and design space based on pre-existing content.

Pay attention to content, whether you write it or not.

A common question arises, as a designer, whether it is your job to write a good copy of the text. The final answer sounds like an escape, but it's true in reality: it depends on you. However, no matter how you answer the question personally, the focus of your work is still on the content.

In some cases, designers never have to think about writing a word for themselves. This situation is mostly in the traditional design companies, have their own independent design departments and copywriting departments. I've seen the big marketing companies that I've worked with, such as the printing companies, like magazine publishers.

In this case, the magazine will hire a lot of writers, never to their designers in the language of fantasy. However, the mode of operation of these enterprises is just the suggestion I advocated for the web design experiment. Magazine designers have new content to deal with or "beautify" every day, the magazine has a mature style, but the page and page can be different, and each page has the challenge of innovation and space requirements. Thus, even if they are not writers, magazine designers are often adept at creating content-centric designs.

Other common situations are the plight of freelancers. In this case, you are single-handedly. No copywriting department or senior editor works with your design team, only you. In this case, whether or not you think the customer is so expected to you fair, hone literary writing becomes your absolute necessary skills, the fact is that customers will think so.

I'm sorry it's too harsh, but if you use Photoshop better than Deke McClelland (bestselling author, Photoshop authority), but you can't write an excellent title to save your life, you're not a good freelancer. Now is the time to give up the excuses of the past to seriously learn to practice writing copy. Let your weaknesses become your strengths. By giving yourself a competitive edge, you can tell potential customers something they don't have in the template design that they've found on Mars from low-end designers.

Copywriting Resources

Here are some excellent resources to prepare you for getting started and becoming a master copywriter.

Fuel Your Writing (blog)

How to Write great Copy for the Web (EBook)

Ten Tips for writing effective Web Copy

Copywriting 101:an Introduction to effective Copy

Summarize

In short, remember that your design is designed to reinforce the content on the highlighted page. If you are a designer who has all hands-on experience, write strong and persuasive copywriting as your primary goal in every job.