What to Think About Before Building a New Website? Part 2: Sitemap & Content

In Part 2 of our series we look at Sitemap & Content. Missed Part 1? It was all about the groundwork, branding, and design.

You’ve now spent some time thinking and planning a design for your new site, now we get into the actual pages and words within the site. Design is critical, yes, but here is how you share your story.

Sitemap & Content

SITEMAP
A sitemap is most simply a list of the primary pages on your website. There is usually a hierarchy with top-level and sub-pages. Your top menu will end up being a slimmed-down or best-of version of the sitemap. A sample sitemap looks like:

• Home
• About Us
  • Leadership
  • Company History
  • Careers
• Our Services
  • Custom Furniture Design
  • Woodworking School
• Blog
• Contact

How many pages do you need on your site? As a general rule, we’d say as few as possible. If you are trying to cram too many ideas or too much info on a page, then it might be best as its own page. But in general, keep your sitemap lean, understandable, and something as easy to get a sense of as possible.

TEXT
Once you have your starting Sitemap identified, you need content for each of these pages. These words on a page will live within a certain design layout and might make use of photos, videos, and graphics.

The text is a key part of telling the story. It is also a key part of ranking in Google (more on that below)

PHOTOS
Having great photos dramatically helps a site feel well done. Ideally have a professional photographer take pictures but carefully chosen stock photography may also be used. We use BigStockPhoto for stock images.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER / LAYOUT
Once you have the text, photos, graphics, videos, etc. it is all about putting them together into a consistent layout.

Writing good copy is hard. Probably just as difficult is then transposing it into a page layout that your audience can follow.

Remember, people scan on the web! Make your content easy to follow by carefully using these tools within your web layout toolkit:

• Headings and sub headings (h1, h2, h3, etc/)
• Bulleted and ordered lists
• Bold and italics
• Buttons or hyperlinking to other content
• Columns or rows
• Use of backgrounds, textures, and colors
• Photos, graphics, icons, and videos

…and MOST KEY, once they have made their way through the page, is there a next step? Don’t forget what you want them to do! Is there more content to go deeper, a call to be scheduled, an e-book to download or a contact form to fill out?

Sitemap, content, and creating layouts sound daunting? Contact us, and see if we’re a good fit for your project.