Comments on: Website designer/ architect or painter/ decorator?

By: Marlene Affeld

Marlene Affeld — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:32:55 +0000

I am preparing to build a new site and will be hiring a website design company. Your article was very helpful – answered a lot of questions and cleared confusion. Thanks for the information.

By: Rob Mason

Rob Mason — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:35:44 +0000

“Putting the maimed horse before the cart” – classic.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:22:22 +0000

The nail has been hit on the head in this article and in the comments here.
We are constantly chasing clients for copy, it seems that most do not know where to start and so put it off despite our efforts to get it at the beginning of a project.
We have now teamed up with a great copywriter to offer a copy writing service to run in parallel with the web design.
This should help those client who struggle to write anything at all and those who write pages and pages of copy that just doesn’t have the focus and concentration that a good copywriter can achieve.

Writing good copy is just as much a skill as designing a website and I think its often not given the credit and attention it deserves.

By: SEO Copywriter

SEO Copywriter — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:58:04 +0000

Thanks Scott! It’s easy to see that web design clients are often their own worst enemy by not thinking “What do I want to say?” before worrying about how to present it.

I’m with Eris too – “All clients need to read this” and she’s spot-on with people in such a rush to see a design that the content’s always “On its way”. But effective websites (and most communications for that matter) get the best results through copy and design working in harmony – what you say and how you say it.

Content shouldn’t be a luxury it should be a necessity!

It’s not always possible to get complete content before working on the design, but when copywriter and designer work together? Well there’s no doubt that the client gets a website that will get better results.

And why don’t web design clients realise this? (Here’s where I think web designers on the whole can’t just blame their clients!) Because the vast majority of designers don’t talk about copy and so many focus on their craft (ooh it’s w3c-compliant XHTML!) that they don’t talk to their clients about how the website is actually going to make sales.

Let’s get together in harmony and make this imperfect world perfect – content isn’t a dirty word, start mentioning it!

Thanks guys