It turns out that documenting the process of creating my new website is actually really interesting for my designer, Emily Tarrant (of Webfooted Designs) as well. She’s finding my perspective to be a very clear explanation of how a good client/designer/copywriter relationship can work – and she’s threatened to send her own prospective clients over to read the journey.
So if you’re here from Emily’s site Hi! Nice to see you – you’re in good hands if she’s working on your site!
Catchup
Since my last meeting with Emily, I’ve been chatting with friends and family members about the website. My sister, in particular, had some great comments on the text, which I’ve taken into account. She also commented that the grey background at the head of the Home page is very grey on mobile. (I’ll come back to that in a minute.)
I have written many things, and sent them over before out meeting this morning, including some new case studies, a list of testimonials (well, I didn’t write those, just collected them – writing my own would be cheating, I think), and some other bits and pieces.
I’ve also decided I need new photos, so that it’s not just the same head shot of me in three or four different places. Step up Dave Scoffin, of Dave Scoffin Photography. He’s responsible for the head shot I’ve been using for the last few years, and does a good job taking photos of me that I like.
It’s a team process, building a new website.
Another member of the team is Matt French of Retina Digital. He’s going to be hosting the new site when it’s live, so he’s been chatting with Emily about things I don’t understand, to make sure it’s going to go smoothly. (Go and have a look at his website – I wrote it!)
Making progress
Emily had started putting the new text into the template before we met, and made the other adjustments based on my family’s comments. We began by looking at the About Me page, which is always a challenge to get right. Writing about yourself is hard, even for a copywriter, and writing for am unformatted page is also tricky.
I’d drafted some short paragraphs, some longer sections of text, some bullets, some short snappy pieces of text, and some heading+subheading combos, and Emily was starting to play with how to lay them out. She’ll be finishing that before we next meet, based on our conversation.
Structure vs content vs design
Looking at the way it was coming together firmed up for both of us that my ‘how it works’ text is definitely a separate page. I’d wondered if it could be a section on the About page, but that’s looking long enough already. So I have to write a short ‘to find out more about how it works…’ preamble, to point to the new page. This is a good example of designing as we go, and allowing the content and the layout to dictate the structure.
Sometimes it works the other way round, where the structure means you have to write the text to fit the spaces, and that’s also good. On the homepage, the layout of six boxes for my service areas works better with six than seven or five.
Images and colours
My sister’s comments on the colour of the background gave us several minutes of flicking back and forth between grey and blue, on different size screens. We’ve come to the conclusion that, while the light blue is best on a mobile, it’s rather a lot on a desktop screen. Emily is going to do a clever thing (she hopes) and make the mobile version blue, with the desktop version grey. We’ll test both on a tablet screen, and see what’s best there – we’re betting grey at the moment…
Emily has used a placeholder photo on the About page, so we’re going to see if it’s possible to take some photos of my hand, writing, or closeup shots of typing, to use on the site, so we have more control over the look, rather than using stock images. Watch this space!
More homework
While we were discussing the case studies, I asked Emily how they will work behind the scenes. We want each to link from the relevant Service pages, but we’ve agreed that they need to have a page listing all of them, so we can link to it from other places. That means that I need to write a precis of each one, for that page.
I’ll also need to write short explanations for the testimonials that don’t attach to a case study, so people know what I did for each client to make them say those nice things about me.
There is one more case study that I need to write as well. When I talk to clients about writing their case studies, I encourage them to choose clients that represent the breadth of what they do in their business – price point and client size, as well as type of work. The idea is to create a broad spectrum, so that any prospective client can come to your site and read a case study that is ‘just like me’. I need to follow my own advice.
However, most of the homework this time is Emily’s.
She will be finishing the About page, and putting one Service page together, and then getting on with the FAQs page, the case studies, the testimonials, and the How it works page, if she has time. The rest of the services pages will follow once I’ve gone through the first one with her, and made sure it works how we want it to.
We have a meeting next week, which will help keep us both on track, and keep the momentum up, and I’ll report back after that.