There’s no doubt that a good-looking website is what it’s all about these days. A decent ‘.com’ for your business has been important for years of course, but that took on a whole new meaning during Covid-19, when you couldn’t get out to see your clients, and they couldn’t come to meet you.

And business owners found themselves with time on their hands to get the designers in and give their sites a new make-over. Since then, websites have become even more important tools in a company’s business armoury.

And it’s vital that you get noticed – but for all the right reasons. It’s one thing having a bold, expensive, all singing, all-dancing website to show off your business. But if your website users can’t understand the copy that goes with it, you’re wasting your time.

Web designers – good ones – are an important commodity and they can make your business sing from the page – or the laptop screen at least. But the copy you supply needs to sing just as loud, or you could be doing more damage to your reputation than good.

You don’t want people squinting at your webpage, trying to make out what’s in there. So what to do?

First, make sure you choose a good, clear font and ensure it is in a reasonable type size. There is no ‘one size fits all’ here because people have different eyesight quality, especially as they get older. You could consider including the option to increase the type size but, if you don’t do that, at least make sure your wonderful prose is clear and bold.

It’s important to have a strong contrast between the written words and the background. Designers can sometimes get over-excited and start experimenting with busy, complicated settings and images which merely hide the copy, chameleon-style. Insist on a plain backdrop or, at least, an uncluttered one to avoid the problem of letters and words merging in with the colourful backdrop.

Words matter here just as much as design. Possibly even more. You need good, strong, legible text that gets across your important business messages loud and clear.

If your web designer can’t – or won’t – give you that, the solution is simple: get yourself a new designer.

To learn more, and to join Business Writing Academy, click here.
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