The design a company chooses impacts how a potential consumer perceives them. From color choice to style, different elements add up to create a first impression.

This means that bad design of website, or lack of design can have potential customers closing the browser and seeking other businesses. As a result, your company’s design can affect several components of your digital marketing strategy, and this is especially true of content marketing.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the practice of publishing content that does not directly advertise a company’s product or brand, but generates interest in those things by providing relevant and helpful information. Content marketing as a strategy is one of the most important sub-strategies of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is an affordable marketing technique that allows you to appear higher in search results.

How web design impacts content marketing

Although these guides are primarily driven by content, Home Depot’s web design impacts how users access and read them.

Accessibility

One of the most important considerations in designing a content-heavy site is accessibility. If you publish informational content on your site, it needs to be easy to find and read. Your navigation should allow users to find the information they want, without clicking through pages of irrelevant content.

If a visitor has to dig through page after page to get to the information they’re searching for, they’ll be likely to give up and visit another site instead of staying in your site. Creating a straightforward navigation setup with drop-down menu choices is a great way to help visitors to find what they are seeking and access it quickly.

Appearance

Visitors will make judgments about the quality and trustworthiness of your content based on how professional your site looks. Even if your content is easy to find, the design can turn people away.

If your site looks outdated or is visually unappealing, users may be hesitant to consider you a valuable resource. You need to have a clean design that illustrates your professionalism, and gives visitors confidence that they can trust your advice.

Readability

Along with the overall look of your site, your text should be visually appealing and easy to read. Too many fonts can be overwhelming and unprofessional, and you can typically stick to one font for titles and another for body copy.

Choosing the right fonts and colors is essential for helping your visitors read and comprehend your content. You might publish the most helpful content available on a specific topic, but if your font color is too similar to your background, your visitors may not be able to read it.

Your body copy also needs to be clean and large enough to be read without struggle. These details all seem minor, but can have a major impact on how effective your content marketing strategy is with potential customers.

Comprehension

Many people are visual learners, and need graphics and photos to fully understand new topics and information. This means it’s essential to include visuals with all of your content.

Regardless of your industry, visual content like photos and videos can help your potential customers get a better idea of how they can use your products or services. From a design standpoint, this means that your site’s layout should work well with visual content, and make it easy for readers to scroll through photos and watch videos.

Designing a content-friendly website

There are many different web design elements that play a role in content marketing, but the bottom line is that your site should be designed  by keeping visitors and readers in mind. The easier it is for your visitors to find what they’re looking for, and the more enjoyable it is for them to read your content, the better results you’ll see from your strategy