Don’t forget the content!

Acclaimed British web designer Paul Boag, creative director of the firm Headscape, writes about a funny phenomenon: how often companies redo their websites, spending lots on design and development, and all but overlook content. The headlines, the text. Funny, isn’t it. Unless you’re paying the bill and not getting the payoff. He writes, in part:

Next time you redesign your website don’t think it is enough just to employ a web design agency. You also need to consider your own responsibilities. … Ask any web designer and they will tell you that the single biggest point of weakness in any redesign project is late delivery of content. As a website owner it is easy to forget that although your web designer can create you a new website they cannot populate it with content.

Rewriting all of the content on your existing site is a major undertaking and without adequate resources it will simply not happen. What happens instead is that content is copied and pasted from your website, printed material or any other ad hoc source that can be found. This not only leads to a horrible Frankenstein mix of content, it also makes relaunching the website pointless.

Read the rest of his very interesting post here. I’m such a fan . . . gush! And I especially like the emphasis he puts on content, since we consider it our strong suit at Lennox: thinking through, organizing and writing the content that really works for clients and for our own projects.

Social media can be a “next step” in courting customers

No, social media isn’t the quick cure to marketing ailments, but it can invite prospective customers and clients to get to know you better, writes Jay Baer in his interesting blog, Convince&Convert. I particularly liked this point:

Social media is the perfect conversion half-step. Not sure whether you’re ready to buy a Toyota? Visit us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, or read our blog, or watch our videos. Each of them will show you what our brand is REALLY like, and you won’t have to wade through all this pesky navigation and flash movies to get what you need.

You may find value in reading the whole post.