Content Creation Guide

Cool Tip: You will be able to add new pages yourself to the website whenever you like down the track using the content management system.

1. Write in conversational plain English and let your business’s brand/personality shine through.  Of course if you are in a technical profession and your target customers prefer and expect a more technical/corporate language, go with that.
2. Check out your competitors’ websites to see what text they have written and how they have communicated it.
3. Think about your business and ask yourself what would my customer want to know about it, what frequent questions do we get asked, etc.

1. Great photos can make or break a website, so make sure you spend enough time collecting high quality photos.  It can be even more important than the text you write!  For example, visit Emmanuel Rossi and My Harvest to see the effect great quality photos can have on a website’s overall look.
2. Photos of your business VS stock photos – ideally your website should have quality photos of your business, maybe even you and your team, and these can be taken by a professional photographer (approx cost $500-$1000) or by yourself using a smartphone.  But if you can’t get these you should consider using high quality stock photos; we recommend Stocksy and you should buy photos that are at least 1000px wide.  On Stocksy the Medium size photos are perfect and cost $25 each.
3. Homepage – try to collect 3 high quality landscape (wide shot) photos for the homepage slider.  If they are over 1000px wide that is perfect.  Visit Bay Dental Brighton for an example of landscape (wide shot) photos.
4. Photo Gallery – if you want a photo gallery page on your website, then you will need 6 or more photos for this page.  Photo gallery pages work great for all kinds of businesses because they communicate a lot of information in a simple eye’s glance.  So whether you are a law firm or a tradie or a restaurant, you should definitely consider this.  Visit Farinacci Pasta to see an example of a photo gallery in use.

1. A professional videographer would charge around $1000-$2000 for a 1 minute smartly edited video showcasing your business.  Although it sounds like a lot, the results can be huge!  For an example of a well executed corporate video, check out Eview’s video.  As you can see the quality of the service, the company’s unique story and the social proof, is so well illustrated by video.  It sells visitors within seconds and convinces them to do business with Eview.  Very valuable!
2. Importantly, avoid trying to shoot your own video.  Unlike photos which you can easily DIY with a good smartphone, shooting and editing professional video is tough.  Also, DIY videos tend to often detract from a website, and so instead of increasing sales, they often decrease them!
3. If you do create video, once completed simply upload your video to Youtube or Vimeo.  Both are great options.  We use Vimeo for all our professional videos (eg our homepage video) – cost $199 a year for commercial user – because it is more customisable and we upload a lot of videos, but if you only need to upload a few then go with the free Youtube option.

• Worth it?  A team page, or team photos on the about page, helps to build the same kind of trust and familiarity people feel when they visit a business in person.  So even if it takes a bit of work collecting all the photos, it is definitely something to seriously consider.

• Worth it?  If you sell products you might want to showcase every single product on your website (eg Lightmax) or you may prefer to just give people an idea of what types of products you have (eg AHBW Products Page).  The advantage of the latter approach, is that you don’t need to get content together for every single product (text and photos), you save money on website development and you give visitors just enough information to convince them to speak to you or visit your business.

• Worth it?  This is just like a portfolio page, but more in-depth and more text focused.  If you can put together case studies, go for it, as they work really well to show people results you have achieved for businesses in a similar position to them and thus work really well to persuade them to work with you.

• Worth it?  For complex service businesses, a process page can help demystify your business and in doing so give visitors the certainty and reassurances they need to take action and get in touch with you.

• Worth it?  It depends!  The advantage of a pricing page is it answers perhaps the number one question visitors have and it saves you time dealing with people who wouldn’t be able to afford your products/services.  The disadvantage is people start to make their decision based on price and thus may treat your product/service like a commodity.  So it depends on what the norm is in your industry and for your target customer.  Generally speaking, our advice is to avoid such a page.  It is much better to speak to prospective customers first, show them how your business can help them solve their problem better than the competition, and then you will no longer be competing on price.

• Worth it?  A FAQ page is great for both visitors and yourself, as it helps them find the answers they want fast and it saves you hours and hours of time answering the same questions via email, phone or in-person.  Also, a smartly written FAQ page can act as a great sales tool as you can answer visitors’ hesitations head on and get them enquiring.  But with that said, for some businesses it is better not to have an FAQ, as not having one encourages prospects to contact you and during the contact process you can sell them perhaps better than your website.  Worth thinking about this one!

• Worth it?  A clients page filled with logos of other businesses, especially any well known businesses, works really well to show people that other people trust your business and so should they.  Even if the logos are of everyday businesses, it is still worth it.  If you go with this page it is a good idea to link each client logo to the client’s own website.

• Worth it?  Always!  It is just as important as a portfolio page.  You might also want to consider combining your portfolio page and testimonials page into one, like we have done with our examples page.  This is a very effective combination!

• Worth it?  If it makes sense for your business, go for it, but this is not an essential page.

• Worth it?  Not essential.

• Worth it?  A media page filled with news articles or website articles mentioning your business, work beautifully as social proof that your business is quality, trustworthy and generally of note.

• Worth it?  It depends on best practices in your industry.

• Worth it?  It depends on best practices in your industry.