The Importance of Preparing Your Website Content Before the Design Phase (Why This Leads To Much Better Conversion Rates)

Most websites fail to convert because they focus on design first and content second. But here’s the truth: Starting with content leads to higher engagement and better results. Why? Because your content is what speaks to your audience, solves their problems, and persuades them to take action - not the colors or fonts.

Here’s what happens when you prioritize content before design:

• Clear Goals: You define what your website needs to achieve, aligning every page with your business objectives.

• Better Structure: Content-first planning creates a user-friendly site that’s easy to navigate.

• Faster Process: Projects move quicker and avoid costly redesigns when content is ready upfront.

• Improved Conversions: Strong content resonates with your audience and guides them to act.

Skipping this step often leads to cluttered layouts, mismatched messaging, and lower search rankings. Instead, let your message drive the design so every element supports your goals. This approach isn’t just smarter - it’s proven to work.

Benefits of Preparing Content First

Focusing on content before diving into design can significantly improve your website’s performance and conversion rates. Unlike design-first approaches, this method ensures that every element of your site serves a purpose, delivering results that are both measurable and impactful.

Clear Business Goals

Starting with content forces you to define exactly what your website is meant to achieve. Instead of building a visually appealing site that may not deliver results, you create a focused digital tool aligned with your business objectives. For instance, a company looking to build its brand might prioritize creating educational and authoritative content, while a business focused on customer retention could emphasize personalized tutorials or success stories.

This process begins with identifying SMART goals - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives. By doing so, every piece of content is crafted with a clear purpose, ensuring that your site actively supports your business goals.

Better Site Structure

A content-first strategy naturally leads to a better-organized website. By prioritizing user needs, you design a site structure that reflects how real people think and search for information. Instead of relying on a designer’s vision, this approach creates intuitive pathways that simplify navigation and reduce cognitive overload.

This method ensures that only essential information is included, making the site easier to use across all devices and platforms. With a well-organized content hierarchy as the foundation, your site highlights the most important information and guides users effortlessly toward taking action.

Faster Design and Development

Planning content upfront can save both time and money. A lack of prepared content often delays projects, but having it ready from the start eliminates these bottlenecks. As Jeff Cardello explains:

"Without any sort of structured content, building the site will be a more time-consuming and frustrating process." - Jeff Cardello

This approach also encourages better collaboration. Developers and designers can work simultaneously - developers building modules while designers create layouts - resulting in faster timelines. Additionally, it minimizes costly redesigns and ensures you select the right platform to meet your content needs, keeping functionality costs under control. Allocating 20–40% of your website budget to content-related tasks can help avoid unexpected expenses and scope creep.

Higher User Engagement and Conversions

By focusing on content first, your website delivers the right information to the right audience at the right time, meeting user needs effectively. This targeted strategy not only improves the site’s appearance but also drives better performance. For example, one site that adopted a content-first approach saw a 10x increase in sales.

Strategic content addresses user pain points, encourages engagement, and motivates conversions. It can also boost social sharing and brand awareness, prompting visitors to explore more and take meaningful action. When content and design work together seamlessly, users get exactly what they need to make informed decisions, ultimately driving better business outcomes and creating a strong revenue stream. This sets the stage for actionable next steps in content preparation.

Steps for Preparing Website Content

Creating website content that resonates with your audience and aligns with your brand's goals is essential. Here’s how to build a strong foundation that connects your message with your site's design while driving conversions.

Create Core Messages

Your website’s core message is its backbone. As Stacey Hagen from Create Coaching Consulting puts it:

"A core message is the overarching brand message in your business."

This message should clearly define who you are, what you offer, and why customers should choose you. Start by diving into your brand identity - your history, values, mission, and target audience. Break down your offerings, clarify your mission and vision, and identify what sets you apart. Research your audience to understand their challenges and map out their journey from initial awareness to making a purchase.

Craft a concise headline that encapsulates your primary message. Support it with three key benefits, backed by examples or data. Gather feedback from your team and customers to refine your core values further. This process will help you focus on what truly resonates with your audience.

Organize Content for User Needs

Once your core messages are in place, structure your content around how users search for and consume information. This step is critical, especially considering that 89% of users will turn to a competitor after a poor experience on your site.

Align your content with the customer journey: educate during the awareness stage, inform during consideration, and persuade at the decision stage. Don’t stop there - offer post-purchase support with guides, tips, or FAQs.

Use intent-based organization to address why users visit your site. Create logical content paths with internal links that guide visitors seamlessly from one stage to the next. Maximize conversions by placing compelling calls to action where they’ll be noticed, and ensure your navigation is intuitive, with clear categories and a search bar to help users find what they need quickly.

Build Content Outlines and Page Structure

Content outlines act as the framework for your website, shaping its design before any visuals are added. Daryn Forgeron from Inbound Journalist explains:

"A content outline is the raw copy version of a website page. It should reflect the structure and overall flow of that website page, but it isn't designed at all. If the wireframes and designed version are the skin and the tissue, [content outlines] are the bones."

Start by brainstorming your main pages and sections. Think about the content each page needs - whether it’s text, images, videos, or clear calls to action. Use content outlines as a guide to map out your website’s structure. Create a sitemap to organize pages logically, and define the information hierarchy with clear call-to-action placements. Wireframes can help establish the layout, but make sure most revisions happen during the outline phase. As Forgeron advises:

"You want to make sure you get as much of your revisions as possible done within the content outline itself or within that phase rather than once the copy is flowed because a lot of development happens around the copy you create."

Use Messaging Guidelines

Consistency in your messaging strengthens your core message and helps guide users toward taking action. Messaging guidelines should define your tone, voice, and branding.

Clarify your brand’s core values. Chelsea D'Angelo from Brandfolder explains:

"Your core brand values are defined as the beliefs that you, as a company, stand for. They serve as the compass that guides your brand story, actions, behaviors, and decision-making process."

These values should influence every piece of content, from headlines to button text. Use consistent terminology and templates to reinforce your brand message. Document your key messages and value propositions for easy reference by everyone involved in content creation. Finally, test your messaging with real users to fine-tune it before finalizing your website design.

Tools and Methods for Content Planning

Having the right tools can simplify content planning and make the process far more effective. These tools act as the bridge between your strategy and a design that drives results. Let’s take a closer look at three key methods that can help streamline content preparation.

Content Outlines

Think of content outlines as the blueprint for your website’s content. They help you organize ideas, structure information, and create clear content flows before diving into design. Tools like Relume.io, used by The Breezy Company, can transform scattered ideas into complete wireframes in under an hour. This upfront planning eliminates the need for endless revisions, allowing you to identify gaps, refine your strategy, and address user experience challenges early in the process.

AI-powered mind-mapping tools also come in handy here, visually grouping related ideas to simplify the brainstorming process and user journey planning. By aligning tools with your workflow, you can build a strong content foundation that’s ready for the next step: wireframing.

Wireframes

Wireframes strip away design details to focus entirely on content placement, navigation, and user experience. This clarity ensures that everyone involved - business owners, designers, and developers - understands where each element belongs and why.

"Wireframes are skeletal frameworks used in web design. They illustrate the layout and arrangement of content and features on a webpage, prioritizing functionality and user experience over visual aesthetics. They serve as a blueprint for the final design." - Design Studio

Research shows users spend just 6.44 seconds on a navigation menu before deciding whether to explore further. This makes it crucial to prioritize key content and intuitive navigation in your wireframes. For example, Arounda's collaboration with Host Presto involved mapping out all interface elements, detailing navigation logic, and designing layouts for secondary and transitional screens. As Adeyemi Oluwagbenga explains:

"Wireframing acts as the bridge between conceptualizing an idea and executing the final design." - Adeyemi Oluwagbenga

Starting with mobile-first wireframes, using grid-based layouts, and adding annotations can create a focused, scalable design. This approach not only saves time but also minimizes costly changes during development.

Once the structure is in place, it’s time to ensure your messaging aligns with your brand’s voice and goals.

Messaging Guidelines

Consistent messaging is a game-changer - it can boost revenue by up to 33%. Messaging guidelines serve as a playbook for your marketing team, ensuring every piece of content, from website copy to email campaigns, reflects your brand’s core message.

A well-rounded messaging framework includes elements like your mission statement, tagline or unique selling proposition (USP), value proposition, brand pillars, buyer personas, positioning statement, and tone guidelines. It also specifies key phrases to use (or avoid), grammar preferences, and brand promises to maintain consistency across all customer interactions.

For example, Kommunicate used a notification bar over seven months to guide customers through installing their chatbot integration. This consistent approach increased their signup-to-chatbot integration rate from 40–45% to 55–60%. Creating practical examples of your messaging - whether for blog posts, emails, or social media - ensures your brand voice stays consistent across different formats.

Regular audits and ongoing team training can help maintain a unified tone and style, leading to stronger brand recognition and better conversion rates.

How Striking Alchemy Uses Content-First Methods

Striking Alchemy takes a content-first approach to reshape online presence, aligning every project with clear strategic goals. This approach ensures that every step of the process is rooted in meaningful content, creating websites that are as functional as they are visually appealing.

Content-Driven Design Process

The process starts with a deep dive into a business's offerings and audience. From there, content takes the lead, guiding the creation of user-friendly designs that not only look great but also serve a purpose. By prioritizing content, Striking Alchemy ensures that every Framer project is built with success in mind. Their focus is on solving real challenges faced by small business owners, delivering websites that cater to actual user needs rather than just aiming to impress visually. This method also simplifies the design workflow, cutting down on the costly revisions often associated with design-first approaches.

"Striking Alchemy was so easy to work with. They invested dedicated time to customize our website. They took time to understand our goals and helped us design a really functional and eye-catching website!" - Katie Eichinger, Duo Oncology

Long-Term Websites for Small Businesses

Small businesses often require websites that can grow and adapt without demanding constant upkeep. Striking Alchemy addresses this by migrating underperforming WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix sites to Framer, creating zero-maintenance websites designed to evolve with the business. Their content-first approach transforms these migrations into comprehensive content restructuring projects. By organizing content around user intent and business goals, they deliver Framer websites that are intuitive and easy for business owners to manage without technical skills. These sites feature conversion-focused layouts and clear calls to action, ensuring the architecture is designed to turn visitors into customers. The result? Websites that are built to last and drive results.

Proven Results for Small Businesses

Striking Alchemy's methods consistently lead to measurable success. For example, their content-first strategy helped the Autumn Immunology Conference Inc. achieve a 48% increase in visits, 67% more new users, and a 106% jump in conversion rates. These results were driven by strategic content organization and seamless integration of systems for attendee registration, sponsorships, donations, and abstract submissions. By combining strategic storytelling with visually striking designs, they deliver websites that not only look professional but also drive real business outcomes.

"Striking Alchemy continues to do amazing things with our websites. We have been thrilled with the results their team has provided. We look forward to continuing to grow under their marketing and e-commerce direction." - Kim Brooks, Warrior Alpaca Socks

This approach proves a vital point: when content strategy leads the design process, businesses receive websites that enhance their online presence and make navigation effortless for users. By focusing on user needs and clear messaging, Striking Alchemy lays the groundwork for long-term success in the digital space.

Conclusion: Why Content Preparation Matters

In this article, we’ve seen how taking a content-first approach can transform web design into a powerful tool for driving conversions. By preparing your website content before diving into design, you create a solid foundation that shapes every design decision and ensures your site effectively communicates your brand’s message and value.

The stats speak for themselves: 92.6% of buyers say a website’s design influences their buying decisions, and 75% of consumers judge a brand’s credibility based on its website design. Even more striking, 38% of users will leave a site if it’s unattractive, and just a single second of page load delay can lead to a 7% drop in conversions. These numbers highlight one thing - content can’t be an afterthought.

Experts agree that content should guide design to create user experiences that are meaningful, not just visually appealing. A content-first strategy not only eliminates expensive redesigns but also builds trust, authority, and delivers clear value to your audience. When your content speaks directly to your audience’s needs and interests, conversion rates naturally increase.

What’s more, content-first websites are better optimized for search engines. They enable you to craft interfaces and experiences that align seamlessly with your core messaging. Jeff Cardello captures this perfectly with his analogy:

“Content acts like a lighthouse for web crawlers - it signals a site’s relevance and provides the information web crawlers need to sort and rank a website. A content-first approach that prioritizes SEO leads to better search rankings and a better user experience”.

For small businesses, this strategy can turn a basic website into a 24/7 conversion engine. By organizing content around user intent and business objectives, you create websites that are easy to navigate and designed to convert visitors into loyal customers.

Ultimately, the choice is clear: invest in content preparation upfront or face the higher costs of revisions and missed opportunities later. When content takes the lead, every design element has a purpose, every page tells your story, and every interaction moves your audience closer to conversion.

FAQs

Why should you define your business goals before starting your website design?

Why Defining Your Business Goals Matters Before Website Design

Setting your business goals before diving into website design ensures every element of your site serves a clear purpose. Whether you aim to boost sales, generate leads, or strengthen brand awareness, having defined objectives helps shape a user experience that aligns with those aims.

When you establish your goals early, you can organize your website’s content and design to encourage visitors to take specific actions. This not only enhances conversion rates but also gives you measurable benchmarks to evaluate your progress over time. A focused, goal-driven approach minimizes wasted effort, reduces the need for constant revisions, and delivers results that truly support your business.

Why is creating website content before the design phase important for user experience and navigation?

Why a Content-First Approach Matters

Building your website around content ensures it’s designed to meet the needs of your users. When you prioritize and organize content early in the process, it becomes easier for visitors to quickly and intuitively find what they’re looking for. This approach not only streamlines navigation but also creates a more enjoyable experience for your audience.

Planning your content upfront also plays a key role in shaping menus and page layouts to align with user intent and your business goals. The outcome? A website that feels purposeful, user-friendly, and tailored to your audience - boosting engagement and delivering stronger results.

What are the best tools and strategies for planning website content before starting the design process?

Before jumping into the design phase, it's smart to map out your website content using tools like content outlines, wireframes, and messaging frameworks. These tools help you structure your content to address user needs while keeping your conversion goals front and center.

When you organize your messaging and define key elements early on, you lay the groundwork for a design that improves user experience and delivers results. Taking a content-first approach not only makes the design process smoother but also ensures your website aligns perfectly with your business goals.