How Web Design Impacts Content Marketing

For businesses with a limited marketing budget, running a diversified content marketing campaign can be a low-cost, high-impact way of raising their brand’s profile. When properly supported, content marketing campaigns can even give smaller brands the recognition and credibility of competitors several times their size.

Unfortunately, the term “content marketing” is often thrown around carelessly to the point that it has lost its original meaning as well as some of its perceived value. For instance, there is a widespread misconception that content marketing is only about writing blog articles and guest posts. In truth, the concepts underpinning content marketing are much more substantial than that.

What is Content Marketing?

Strictly speaking, content marketing is the online or offline sharing of any media content to gain qualified leads. This content can be in any form, including videos, podcasts, social media posts, and articles.

Unlike advertising, content marketing is usually less focused on sales and more geared toward brand development, lead generation, and customer retention. As such, content marketing is a multidisciplinary practice that is intended to help businesses achieve better efficiency in their sales and marketing, ultimately leading to lower lead acquisition costs and a lower cost per sale.

How Does Web Design Influence Content Marketing?

Web design has a key role in meeting almost every business goal related to content marketing. SEO, SEM, and advertising can lead visitors to your website and your content can inform them. But without expert web design, your website will struggle to earn their trust and retain their interest, both of which are critical to a successful content marketing effort.

Here are some important ways web design influences your content marketing campaign’s success:

1) Visual Appeal

This is the most obvious way web design affects your content marketing. All other things being equal, great-looking websites will always outdo less visually-interesting competitors, at least initially. Visually appealing websites and social media pages are more likely to be seen as credible, which may entice more new visitors to stay. This added trust also influences whether or not visitors choose the share the brand’s content or mention it to other people.

The role of web design in shaping visual appeal does not end at a brand’s landing pages either. Today, social media sites and content platforms like YouTube are also major avenues for content market marketing. Web designers must, therefore, be able to effectively work within the constraints of these third-party sites to create visuals that enhance the appeal and trustworthiness of the content being shared.

2) Branding

Website and social media page design can serve to reinforce — or degrade — your brand’s image. Thoughtful, consistent web design goes beyond visuals and is consistent with the messaging the brand tries to convey. Even if it’s visually appealing, web design that’s incongruent with the brand’s message can confuse visitors, resulting in reduced trust and poorer conversions.

Because most people today discover brands through online searches and social media, web design now has a pivotal role in shaping our ideas of what a brand is all about. Given this, web designers need to work very closely with brand managers and site owners to ensure that their design decisions help serve the brand’s core messaging.

3) UX Optimization

Designers are more than just artists. They have to consider the effect of their work on specific classes of users. Thus, optimizing UX (user experience) is a major component of web design.

How different website elements come together has a cumulative effect on how users perceive and use a website. In particular, web design has major implications for the site’s ease of use, thus directly affecting the effectiveness of any content marketing effort.

Web design is such a key part of shaping overall UX that UX design has become a key specialization within web and application design. Business websites that are consistently on top of organic search results tend to employ UX designers or web designers with UX design experience, as these individuals are critical for ensuring consistent lead generation and conversions for online properties.

4) Lead Conversion Optimization

All the previous points relate to this key area. A web property’s visuals, branding, and UX should all help in contributing to its conversion rate. In content marketing, conversions tend to be measured in terms of qualified leads rather than purchases, as is the case with an ecommerce landing page.

In content marketing, web designers’ lead conversion optimization responsibilities can consist of such activities as tweaking the colors of email signup buttons, improving the layout, and fine-tuning the site structures so that customers are more fully-engaged with the content. They may also work on elements of social media pages and other online properties where a brand can expect to draw qualified leads.

Final Thoughts

As a full-service digital marketing agency, SearchWorks has built its reputation on search optimization and content creation. However, we understand that success with these marketing strategies alone can only go so far, particularly if your competitors have also invested heavily in these areas. Unless a website employs a diversified approach to content marketing that includes web design, it can’t expect to earn repeat business or stay on top of Google’s organic search results for very long.

By understanding the real value that web design brings to content marketing, site owners can more effectively allocate their digital marketing budget, ensuring the people that come in contact with their brand online are more likely to be converted into qualified leads and paying customers.

To ensure the best possible lead generation outcomes, site owners need to consider engaging the services of the best web design teams available to them. If you’re interested in talking to web designers who understand your business’s goals, contact SearchWorks.PH. Our team of designers, developers, and content experts will be happy to assist you in your content marketing campaigns.