How to align your content strategy with your website design

We are spending more time than ever consuming content online. That is why content marketing is a universal way to strengthen brand awareness and expand your customer base. Yet when devising content marketing strategies, marketers rarely take website design into account. Here is what they fail to realise: consistency is the key to a successful brand strategy. And consistency goes well beyond product, content, and message.

Every element of a brand must remain consistent for it to be recognised on the web. This means that, ideally, your content marketing efforts should align with your website design. But how do you ensure that your content and your website stay in tune with one another? The answer lies in considering the following aspects.

Brand tone of voice

Your brand's tone of voice refers to the type of language, phrasing, and style you use to communicate your offering, your brand values, and your personality. The term "tone", which can be misleading, here refers to written content rather than spoken communications.

Whether you decided to create a website before your content, or the other way around, you must ensure that both reflect your brand's tone of voice.

Every brand's tone is unique and should reflect everything that stands behind the brand. The formal language of a law firm will therefore differ from that of an e-commerce shop targeting teenagers. When developing your brand's tone of voice, take your target audience, brand personality, values, and core principles into account.

In general, communication style can be distinguished along four dimensions:

• Formal (conveys professionalism and authority) OR informal (humanises relationships and creates a sense of friendliness)
• Serious (inspires credibility and trust) OR humorous (facilitates social exchanges)
• Measured (conveys friendliness and sociability) OR assertive (conveys competitive edge)
• Realistic (conveys transparency and simplicity) OR enthusiastic (conveys a willingness to help)

If your brand is more commercial and strict, your website and its content should reflect that. If you wish to be closer to your customers, you can create more personalised content and a more colourful, creative website.

Starbucks is an excellent example of how an informal, conversational tone is used on a website. If you browse the site, you will notice that all elements align with their way of speaking directly to the customer. This approach is designed to create a sense of personalised messaging and friendliness.

User experience

Your website design and content marketing elements have a considerable impact on how your audience perceives your brand and interacts with you. That is why user experience (UX) is another aspect that must remain consistent across all your content and your website.

If you do not have a designer's eye yourself, you can call upon web designers to create visually appealing, functional, and intuitive layouts. Apply the same principles and effort to your content strategy. All your content must be well formatted, scroll correctly, and be easy to browse.

When aligning your content and web design to improve UX, it helps to think from the perspective of the UX Honeycomb framework. This framework suggests that to achieve a meaningful and valuable user experience, the web design and content you create should be:

• Useful: your web design and content should be relevant, original, and meet a genuine need.
• Desirable: design elements and content should be crafted to evoke emotion and appreciation.
• Accessible: your site's design and content should be accessible, including to people with disabilities.
• Usable: your site's design and content should be easy to consume and discover.
• Findable: your website and its content should be easy to locate on the web.
• Credible: your site's design and content should inspire trust and be reliable.

Apple is well known for its minimalist UX. Even though not all its design solutions are complex, they perfectly meet all six criteria set out by the UX Honeycomb framework.

Visual style

Visual appeal is the first thing website visitors experience when exploring your brand online. A first impression can make or break your relationship with prospective customers. That is why both your content strategy elements and your website design must be visually attractive.

Ensure that your website's layout and graphic elements are consistent with the typography and style of your content. Equally, the visual appeal of your website should match your brand's tone of voice. More formal, content-heavy websites should use standard typography, background images, and graphics to illustrate key points. Conversely, if you are a less formal, more relaxed brand, include colourful illustrations and GIFs to liven things up.

Remember that consumers tend to make emotional purchases and rationalise their buying decisions afterwards. It is therefore important to know how to forge an emotional connection with your audience. The visual component is crucial for attracting customers on an emotional level and encouraging them to buy more.

Use these tips to build an emotional connection with your audience through visuals:

1. Create a sense of urgency by adding countdown timers and expiry dates to deals and pop-ups.
2. Channel desire in your visual content to capture the audience's interest.
3. Create visuals that inspire pleasure. If it fits your brand's tone of voice, use humour in your visual content.

The CanneSéries festival website is an excellent example of how typography and visuals can be used to attract a target audience.

Pop-ups to introduce more content

Pop-ups are where website design meets your content marketing efforts to move users into the content marketing funnel.

Studies show that contextual pop-ups achieve higher conversion rates. In fact, context can increase your pop-up conversion rate by up to 40%. That is why you want to create pop-ups that are relevant and contextual for users. For example, you might introduce a pop-up offering to download an e-book or join a webinar when someone is reading relevant content.

Furthermore, you can align your content marketing and website design to create the following pop-up alternatives:

• Notification announcements
• Stationary banner ads
• Stationary side ads
• Exit pop-ups
• Pop-unders
• Time-based pop-ups

Esquire offers an excellent example of how pop-ups should be executed. This pop-up works well because it looks organic alongside the content of other websites, and helps the site collect email addresses for its newsletter.

Conclusion

Businesses around the world are increasingly turning to content marketing and inbound marketing to attract customers and build fruitful relationships. The success of your efforts depends largely on the quality of your content elements. And the compatibility of your content with your web design is a crucial — albeit frequently overlooked — factor.

By keeping your web design and your content in sync, you can build a strong brand image and ultimately achieve better results. Follow the tips above to find the perfect blend of content marketing and web design!

Freely translated from English: article Elegant Theme