When people think about building a new website, they usually picture design first. They think about colours, layouts, animations or maybe a slick moving homepage hero. The huge factor that tends to get underestimated is written content, and more specifically, content planning.
As a Senior Project Manager, I have significant experience in delivering hundreds of website projects and I can tell you that poor content planning is one of the biggest reasons website projects are delayed. In this blog, I’m going to explain why and how to mitigate content issues in website projects before they arise and cause a blockage.
Missing content, late content or content that keeps changing will impact every stage of a website build. Design stalls, development pauses, timelines stretch and frustration builds on both sides when content becomes a problem.
In my experience, it is very rare that a project slows down because the build itself is too complex. Much more often, it is because content decisions were not made early enough and proper contingencies were not considered.
One of the first questions that needs answering is whether new content is actually needed at all. Some content can be reused as is. Some can be updated or consolidated. Some should probably be removed entirely. Identifying this early avoids last minute scrambling when a page suddenly has nothing to go on it.
Adding new pages during a website build is not just a content task. It often creates knock on effects for design and development. A new page type might need a new layout. That layout then needs designing, approving and building. If this only comes up halfway through a project, it almost always means delays.
Another key question is ownership - who is actually writing the content for the new website? Sometimes the client is writing it. Sometimes the agency is. Sometimes it is a mix of both. Copywriting takes time, and even more time when approvals and revisions are involved. If ownership is unclear, timelines stall very quickly.
Content is not just words on a page. Different types of content place very different demands on design, so it’s a good idea knowing what type of content you want on a website before the design is finalised.
You might need long form text, short supporting copy, images, graphics, tables, charts, videos, animations, FAQs, testimonials, case studies, statistics or interactive elements like calculators and filters. All this affects the design and page layout.
A design can look great in a Figma mockup but could still fail if it does not leave enough space for the content you were planning to put on there. Being able to create a full website design with knowledge of all content types required makes everybody’s lives easier and prevents a realisation during the testing phase that there’s no space for all your content.
The sheer volume of content going onto a new webpage has more impact than you might think. This is because longer pages may need clear sections, accordions or tabs to keep them usable, while shorter pages might not justify their own URL at all.
If you don’t fully consider the length of content for each page then you may end up with overcrowded pages or lots of subpages that should’ve just been rolled into one.
Thinking about content length early in your new website content plan helps shape better page structures and navigation.
Some content choices directly affect how much development work is required.
Comparison tables, filters, calculators or tools all need additional development time. Videos and animations affect performance and hosting considerations. If a client decides late on in a project that they want a content feature that requires development time, the scope of the project will grow and timelines will be lost.
None of this is a problem if all content has been planned ahead of time. It becomes a problem when it is discovered too late.
One of the most overlooked parts of content planning is the approval stage. Who signs off the content? How many rounds of approval are needed for each piece of content? How many stakeholders are involved in the review process?
If these questions aren’t answered early enough, delays can crop up during the approval phase rather than during writing. To protect the overall project schedule, it’s important to build approval time into the overall timeline at the start of the project.
I often find that a website project moves at the speed of its content. When all content is planned properly and ahead of time, the design and development phases flow smoothly thereafter. When content is forgotten about, the entire project slows down - a lot.
I’m not saying you have to be totally rigid in your content planning ahead of a new website, but you have to make informed decisions early, set clear ownership of content tasks and understand how changes will affect the entire build.
If you get that right, your new website project will run faster, smoother and with far fewer surprises!
Web design and development is one of our specialities here at The Digital Maze and we have immense experience in designing and delivering fully bespoke websites for clients in various different fields. We also offer content marketing services and SEO copywriting, both of which can help supercharge a website project. Contact us today to hear how a website project can take your digital presence to the next level.
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