The Marriage of Words and Web Design
There is a saying in digital marketing strategy that says content is king. However, in an increasingly digital world, visuals like video, photos, graphics, and colors all play a vital role as well.
The reason is that the web has always, or should always have been about the user experience. The purpose of a website is not to rank higher than your competition in Google or other search engines, but to reach your ideal potential target and turn them into a customer.
This is where the merging of design and words begins: from your domain name and page names to the colors and fonts on your page, and how it is laid out. All of these things matter, and without words, your design does not matter, and without the right words, even the greatest design leads the user nowhere.
Content Enhances Your Design
What is the message you are trying to get across to each web visitor that comes to your site? No matter what you are selling, whether a product or service, you want the reader to get a couple of clear messages:
- You have a problem, want, or need that you are trying to solve or fulfill.
- We can help you solve that problem, or meet that want or need.
- This is what sets us apart from our competition.
Truly, all of your content from your home page to landing pages and blog posts is designed to deliver those simple messages.
Your logo, the quality of your “hero” photos or videos, the font you use, and the colors incorporated into your design all speak to the quality of what you do. The words on the page enhance that design and make it useful.
Your Design Sets the Mood for Content
Why are colors so important when it comes to web design? Because certain colors immediately set the reader’s mood when they reach your site. If you look at the emotion the content is trying to evoke on that page, you can adjust color choices accordingly.
- Women don’t like gray, orange, and brown. They like blue, purple, and green.
- Men don’t like purple, orange, and brown. Men like blue, green, and black.
- Use blue in order to cultivate user’s trust.
- Yellow is for warnings.
- Green is ideal for environmental and outdoor products.
- Orange is a fun color that can create a sense of haste or impulse.
- Black adds a sense of luxury and value.
- Use bright primary colors for your call to action.
- Don’t neglect white.
Think of who your target audience is, and what reaction you are trying to evoke from them. The psychology of color is extremely complex, and which colors to combine where really do make a difference in how your content resonates.
The design you use sets the mood for the content and vice-versa.
Visual + Words = Conversion
The combination of the right visuals with the right design leads users to conversion. We have already talked about some of the reasons. Design sets the mood for content, and content should speak to the design as well. They should be melded for a purpose.
Depending on who you are trying to reach depends on how you should set up your landing pages and other conversion pages, even down to the contact us pages. You want to set up a sense of urgency and even scarcity but without stressing the customer out.
This is a delicate balance, and at the same time you need to appeal to more than one type of web user. Some are ready to buy or take action as soon as they reach your page, others want to read about benefits and even features of your product. A well-designed landing and conversion page will speak to all of these types of users.
The challenge is speaking to all of them, and reaching them where they are, using color combinations that inspire trust, and that also resonate with your product or service.
Words Lead the Way
Lastly, words or content is what drives the customer through the buyer’s journey and the sales funnel. There are a number of diagrams that explain the various parts of this funnel, but the essential parts are simple:
- Awareness: This is the stage where the potential customer is really just aware that they have a problem, need, or want, and they are looking for a solution. They have just become aware that your company exists and offers a potential solution.
- Consideration: this is the point at which the buyer is now making decisions about where to purchase the product or service that will serve as their solution to the problem, need, or want they are currently expressing.
- Decision: This is the point at which the customer is ready to buy, and they are on your conversion pages, in your shopping cart, and checking out.
While your web design helps enhance this journey, and many elements are essential to lead the user the direction you want them to go, the content of your site and the words used there lead the way.
The marriage of words and web design is what makes the user experience smooth, that leads that user from the curious seeker in the awareness stage to being a customer for life. The two are dependent on one another, and the more you work together on these elements, the better digital marketing results will be.
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