If you ask most people what a website is made of, their answer might be something about programming servers or files and generators and all kinds of crazy jargon. At the end of the day your website consists mainly of text and images. The rest is just window dressing, designed to make your text and images look good and function well. The text and images make a significant impact on your website visitors and the choices they make, so they need to be strong.
Your images
Here at Zibster, we believe that 99% of what makes a good website is good images. People are visual beings, so if you want your business to look professional and relevant, it’s important to use imagery that supports that look. When selecting images to use, think about the impression you want to convey and the images that best represent your business. Your website should showcase the truest, highest example of your brand.
Let’s start by getting the elephant in the room out of the way here. Nothing will replace a high-quality professional photography session for your business, employees, products, and location. Having high-quality images on hand that you can use online, on social media, and on your marketing materials is a crucial part of investing in your business’ success. That said, it’s okay if your business isn't quite ready to take a step forward like that! Everyone moves at their own pace, and there are lots of ways to get images that will work for you without breaking your budget.
The easiest way to get images is to take them yourself, but it’s important to be careful and make sure that you’re creating photos of relatively high quality. If you’re taking your own pictures, make sure that you have good lighting and are using a decent camera. Even your iPhone can work. A few things to keep in mind are:
- Make sure that your lighting is bright enough to keep your subject well-illuminated, but not so bright that things look washed out or overexposed.
- If you’re shooting outside, late afternoon is usually the best time for lighting. Photographers call this “The Golden Hour” for a reason.
- Indoors, taking a desk lamp and pointing it at a nearby wall so that the light bounces off can be a great trick to soften an overly-bright light source without investing in expensive equipment.
- Avoid using your camera’s flash. The flash will illuminate your subject too much, usually from an unflattering angle.
Taking your own pictures isn’t always possible, though. Maybe you don’t have access to a good enough camera, or maybe you’ve got pictures but getting them off your phone is a challenge you don’t have time for. Or maybe you just don’t have time to get all your employees together for picture day, especially during a pandemic. For occasions like these, there's stock photography. Your Zibster control panel comes with a wide selection of stock photos that you are welcome to use on your website. Just choose the “stock images” option from anywhere that you can upload images and search for what you need. There are also a number of other free stock photography sites out on the web — we recommend Unsplash.com, a community-sourced free stock photo library with millions of pictures to choose from. We use it ourselves all the time! In fact, if you take advantage of one of our Pro Services, we can even pick out relevant stock photos for you.
Your text
Of course, as important as your images are, they also aren’t the only part of your website. The other major part — in many ways even more important — is your text.
Text can often be one of the hardest parts of putting a new website together — especially if you’re busy running a small business and this is your first time building a website. If this is your first time sitting down to write about your business like this, the good news is that it’s not as hard to write your text as you may think.
First things first: how much text do you need?
While a certain amount of text is required when it comes to being able to rank on search engines, the good news is that you probably need less than you think. We took a look through some of our favorite sites, both ones our clients built themselves and ones we built for them. We found that, on average, the 200-400 word range is just about perfect for a given page. This range provides enough information for both search engines and potential clients to get a feel for your business without overwhelming (or boring) them.
Of course, for many of us, the trouble with writing isn’t really figuring out how much to say: it’s figuring out what to say in the first place. There are few challenges more daunting than staring at a blank screen and hoping for the right words to fall out of your fingertips. If you’re having trouble getting the words to flow, start by outlining what you want to write about.
When I’m writing, I like to start out with a bulleted list of all the information I can think of about my topic (in your case, your business). Then, I go through that list in order, tossing out information that isn’t relevant to my audience and organizing my bullet points into groups that go together naturally.
For example, if I’m trying to write about Zibster, I might start with a list that looks like this:
- Based in Greensboro, North Carolina
- Websites for small business and nonprofit organizations
- DIY package is $15/month without phone support (reduced rate during COVID-19 pandemic)
- We Do It For You package is $25/month + $450 one-time setup fee
- Powered by passionate people
- Fastest websites in the world
- Great for SEO
- John usually wins the annual chili cook off
- Founded in 2004
- Newest template is Adams
- Unlimited access to Support from 9 AM-8 PM M-F at 844.353.3412
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- Template-based system, website builder is drag-and-drop
Then, after running back through, removing items that aren’t relevant, and organizing my bullet point, my outline looks more like this:
About
- Based in Greensboro, North Carolina
- Websites for small business and nonprofit organizations
- Powered by passionate people
- Founded in 2004
Pricing
- DIY package is $15/month without phone support (reduced rate during COVID-19 pandemic)
- We Do It For You package is $25/month + $450 one-time setup fee
- 60-day money-back guarantee
Our websites
- Fastest websites in the world
- Great for SEO
- Template-based system, website builder is drag-and-drop
From there, I have a really solid foundation to expand on these bullet points by asking questions about them. Then, I approach each point from the perspective of a member of my audience and the kind of questions they might ask. Things like, “what if I’m not a small business owner or on a nonprofit board? Can Zibster still make me a website?” or “What comes with the We Do It For You package”? I answer those questions using bullet points too, and before I know it, I have everything I want to say laid out in front of me. Once I’ve done that, fleshing the thoughts out into complete sentences is way easier than starting from a blank page. A lot of it can even stay as bullet points if you want: it all depends on how you want to present the information. Your website isn’t a formal essay, so do whatever makes the most sense for your business!
When it comes to both your text and your images, the most important thing of all to remember is that your Zibster website is super customizable and designed from the ground up with small business owners in mind. You can always come back and edit your site as often as you’d like. If the wording or your pictures aren’t perfect right away, that’s alright. It’s more important to get a presence for your business out there and start selling than it is to hold your whole business hostage because you’re still trying to find the perfect phrasing. Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good”. Your website should change, evolve, and grow alongside your business. So don’t sweat it if it isn’t a magnum opus right at launch. And if you need help making updates and edits, let us know! Our Passionate Web Consultants are here to help you.
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