How Web Design Impacts Content Marketing

Content marketing has become a buzzword over the past few years. But what does it really mean? And why should you care?

In order to understand content marketing, we first need to understand web design. Web design is the art of creating websites. It includes everything from choosing fonts to colours, images, layout, navigation, etc.

If you’ve never heard of web design before

via GIPHY

then you probably aren’t familiar with the term “content”. However, if you’ve ever visited a website, then you’ve seen content.

Content marketing is simply using content as part of your overall web design strategy. For example, instead of just having a boring old homepage, you might create a page where you talk about your company and its products. Or maybe you’d write a blog post about something interesting happening in your industry.

The point is, that content marketing is not new. It’s been around since the beginning of the internet. What’s changed though is how effective it is. Nowadays, content marketing is used by companies big and small to promote themselves online.

And because content marketing works so well, many businesses are trying to figure out how to get started. This means that you may soon see a lot more content marketing created. Today we want to explain how web design affects content marketing

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the practice of creating and sharing informative, useful, and engaging online content. This type of content is often used to attract visitors to a website, keep customers engaged once there, and generate leads.

Although it sounds very similar to traditional advertising, content marketing differs because it focuses on telling stories about products and brands rather than selling them.

The Goal of Content Marketing

The goal of content marketing isn’t just to sell something; it’s to provide value to potential buyers. In fact, many companies are turning to content marketing as a way to increase traffic to their sites without paying for ads.

Here are four common goals of content marketing:

1. Provides Useful Information

If people want to learn how to do something, chances are they’ll turn to someone else who already knows how to do it. When you write articles, blog posts, etc., think of yourself as a teacher rather than a salesman. You’re giving others the knowledge they need to solve problems, find solutions, and complete tasks.

2. Keeps Customers Engaged

Once people visit your site, they expect to be entertained. They don’t want to read long blocks of text or watch long videos. If all they can find is a bunch of dry facts, they’ll quickly leave. Instead, use content to engage your audience. Ask questions, offer advice, encourage interaction, and make sure every piece of content is written in an entertaining manner.

3. Generates Leads

When you have great content, you’ll start attracting visitors. These visitors will want to know more about your business. So, when they arrive at your site, give them information that answers their questions. Offer free reports, white papers, ebooks, etc.

4. Builds Trust

People trust recommendations from friends, family members, and experts. So, if you consistently publish helpful and educational content, you’ll gain credibility over time. And, when people begin to trust you, they’ll eventually become leads.

Now that we have established what content marketing and potential goals one can have for content marketing is, let see the ways web design affects content marketing.

Elements of Web Design that Impact Content Marketing

Studies show that first impressions of visitors about websites are design related 94% of the time, while 72% of people read headlines and 57% look at pictures. This means that if you want to increase the chances of a visitor clicking on your link, you must ensure that your web design is up to par. Here are five ways that web design impacts content marketing.

1. Visual Appeal

One of the most important things that determine whether a person likes something or not is how attractive it looks.

As most of the traffic to websites is coming from mobile phones, you need to make sure your website looks good in both desktop and mobile versions.

Your website should reflect your business and brand identity. Make sure that it looks modern, clean, and professional. In addition, make sure that the content speaks to who and what your company is all about. Visitors should feel comfortable when visiting your site. They should have no doubt that the content on your site is accurate and trustworthy.

2. Navigation

People love simplicity. They don’t like having to think too much to find information. In fact, research suggests that people spend less than 10 seconds looking at a website before deciding whether to continue browsing or not.

Therefore, keep navigation simple and easy to use.

Make information easy to reach

3. Typography

When we talk about typography, we’re talking about the text that is displayed on the webpage.

Typography can make long-form content to be easily readable if done right.

Font choices, usage of white space, alignment, spacing between letters, and font size can alleviate the reading experience on a site and ensure the visitor is having a wonderful experience reading the content on your site.

Just look at how nice and easy to read text from Medium.com is

4. Accessibility

When talking about accessibility, the goal is to make the website able to be used by a wide range of people. And this includes people with certain disabilities as well. If your site isn’t accessible, then no matter how good your content is, nobody will ever see it.

Here are some ways to check and ensure your website is accessible

• Do all images have alternative text?
• Can the website be navigable using only a keyboard?
• If there are any audio or video files, do they include transcripts or captions?
• Is the text on the website designed in colour contrasts that is easier to read?

For more detail, you can refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

5. Color Scheme

Colour schemes play a massive role in determining whether a user stays on a page or leaves. For instance, red is known to cause stress. Blue makes people feel relaxed. Green is calming, and yellow is stimulating. When choosing colours, consider the mood you want to create.

Conclusion

Hope we managed to explain to you how web design affects content marketing.

By making sure that your site is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and accessible, you can increase the likelihood that visitors will stay on your site and click on links.

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