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

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

November 12, 2019 by LimeCuda Leave a Comment

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

Content and Sitemap

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.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: content, copy, sitemap

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