Creating a new website or revamping what you’ve got can be a challenge. However, taking the time to plan and execute the development process makes your website a better sales tool.
When you’re working on your website content it’s a good idea to lay your ideas out for the whole team to see. That way they can visualize the end product, making additions and offering suggestions throughout the process. Storyboarding is a planning process that breaks down your design page by page including the images, videos and text you want to see.
Storyboarding = planning the content for each page and subpage of your website. The content should be based on the information your customers want, and what you want them to do on the site. These two information needs are imperative to creating a useful website that helps lead consumers along their buyer’s journey.
As website copywriters, we’ve heard clients say they are redesigning their website. Great! But, have decided to just 'tweak' their content. Hmmm, less great. Just tweaking content is not such a great idea, even though you might think it will save time or money. You’ll lose out on the benefits of a good, useful website which outweighs any gains you’ll see by skimping on the planning and design processes.
Here’s why website content planning (storyboarding) is essential:
- You’ll gain a better understanding of the benefits of your business by sharing ideas with key departments like marketing and sales teams (your website is not just an IT or Public Relations project, it’s a team effort).
- You’ll uncover your U.S.P (unique sales proposition) so you know what to focus your content on to get the right traffic: people looking for your product or service, and increase sales.
- You’ll be able to identify what to track so you know what’s working well for user engagement and what can be changed to make the user experience and sales process better.
You can definitely repurpose some of your content as you redevelop your site, and take ideas from your marketing materials if you’re starting from scratch. Just keep in mind it’s not just an information copy-and-paste exercise. Your website needs a plan to help your buyer’s reach their end goal by showing them how you can meet their wants and needs.
3 Tips To Start Your Website Design Storyboard
Your storyboard gives you a view of your website before you go live with anything. Here’s what you need to keep in mind and include in your storyboard:
1. Plan the content around reader interest before writing.- Toss ideas around with your team so you know what questions need to be answered in your copy.
- Look at past user data (if you have it) so you know what content is getting traction from users (or ask your marketers what content they have that’s been effective).
- Lay out how to get to the point fast because people will click away if they don’t see information relevant to them.
- On your storyboard, you can visualize how users will navigate your site. When you can see all the pages laid out you can create your homepage plan with descriptive text to link to the appropriate page further into the site.
- Looking at your website as a whole within a storyboard can help you spot pages that are similar in content so you can merge or eliminate as needed. You don’t need to say the same thing over and over on many pages. Offer the content once and link where appropriate.
Keep This In Mind When Storyboarding Your Website Content
- Plan reader movement so you’re prepared with the content they’re looking for to make their buying choice.
- Plan content for each page based on who your ideal clients are so you’re not wasting effort creating and hosting pages that’ll get no traffic because they’re not relevant.
- Let your homepage be a navigational page for the whole site to enable quick and easy navigation so your customers can find what they want easily.
Share Your Storyboard To Keep Your Website Design Team On Point
Canva is an online software you can use to share your storyboarding process with your team. You can choose templates, add visuals and text to develop your website in a way that helps you see what the final product will look like. And, because it’s shareable you can get input from everyone on your team easily so nothing is missed in the end product.
Remember when choosing what makes your website a better sales tool don’t plan content around what everyone else has. Think about what your customers need to trust you and want to know before buying. Plan your website around that knowledge and create the content to support it. Ask yourself, is there a gap between what your business website says you do and what you actually do? If there is, fix in the planning stage.
