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One of the questions that comes up when somebody is planning a new website is who actually writes all the content.
Years ago, we would often wait for clients to send it through. What normally arrived was a few big paragraphs about the company, often quite heavy on industry jargon and written very much from the company's point of view.
There was nothing wrong with the information. The problem was that it was rarely written with the website, the customer or generating enquiries in mind.
These days, we much prefer to create the first draft ourselves.
Why we prefer to write the first draft
The first reason is simple: it massively speeds up the project.
Waiting for website content can hold everything else up. If we create the first draft, the designers have proper content to work with and the client has something substantial to review rather than a blank page.
The second reason is that we know what the content needs to do.
Our goal with every website is to generate enquiries. That affects how we structure the page, what questions we answer, where we put calls to action, how much detail each service needs and how the content works alongside the design and SEO.
If a client wants to change the content afterwards, that is absolutely fine. At least they are starting with a structure that has been created for a reason rather than trying to work out the whole page themselves.
The content still needs to sound like the client
Writing the first draft ourselves does not mean guessing what a client wants to say.
We spend time researching the business and understanding its services, customers, messaging and personality. The content needs to be factually correct, but it also needs to feel like a fair representation of the company.
We want the client to open the first draft and be proud of how their business comes across. We do not want them thinking, 'This isn't us.'
In practice, around nine times out of ten our clients change very little. For us, that is a good sign. It means we have understood what they are trying to achieve and how they want their business presented. It also means we have made their life a lot easier.
Good website content has a job to do
We are not writing content simply because every page needs some words on it.
The main job is to help generate enquiries.
That means explaining the service clearly, answering the questions somebody is likely to have, building trust and making the next step obvious. It also needs to give the designer enough structure to create an interesting page rather than one large block of text.
SEO matters too. We want the pages to have a genuine opportunity to be found on Google and through newer AI search tools. But we never want the copy to read as though it has been written for a search engine.
The best content should read naturally first. The SEO should sit underneath it.
That is also why we plan content as part of our wider web design process, rather than treating it as something to add once the website has already been designed.
Yes, we use AI
We use AI as part of the process, and we would be mad not to.
It helps us research faster, explore a subject in more depth, organise information and get to a strong first draft much more quickly.
But there is a big difference between using AI properly and asking it to 'write a website' and sending whatever comes back to the client.
We spend a lot of time directing the AI and giving it the right information. The content is then reviewed by humans. Ethel, our content writer, reviews our content. I am also involved, bringing 18 years of experience in web design and digital marketing, and the client gets the final say before anything is published.
We also keep up with changes in search and Google's guidance. The aim is not to find ways of getting AI content past Google. The aim is to use AI to help us create genuinely useful, accurate content that deserves to perform well.
Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content is a useful reference here. How the first draft was produced matters far less than whether the finished content is genuinely useful to the person reading it.
What about using a professional copywriter?
We are not going to tell you that we are better writers than a specialist copywriter.
We have worked with professional copywriters in the past and some of them are brilliant at what they do. If a client wants to bring a dedicated copywriter into the project, we are completely happy with that. We can also introduce clients to copywriters we have worked with and trust.
Our own content process is really about keeping the project moving and removing a lot of hassle for the client.
We can research the business, produce a strong first draft and give the design team properly structured content to work with. The client can then review it and change as much or as little as they want.
What do we need from the client?
We still need the client's knowledge.
No AI tool or web agency knows the business as well as the people running it. We need to understand the services, the customers, what makes the business different, the questions people ask and anything technical that needs to be accurate.
We can gather that through meetings, questionnaires, existing websites, brochures, documents and conversations. We then combine that information with our own research and experience.
The client is involved throughout and approves the final content. We are simply taking away the difficult bit of starting from scratch.
What should you ask your web designer?
If you are speaking to agencies about a new website, I would ask how they handle content before you sign anything:
- Who creates the first draft?
- Will you help decide which pages the website needs?
- How will you learn about our business?
- Is SEO considered before the content is written?
- Will the content be structured around generating enquiries?
- Can we review and change everything before it goes live?
- Is content creation included in the quote?
There is no single correct model. You might want to write everything yourself. You might want a dedicated copywriter. Or you might want the web agency to take the lead. The important thing is knowing who is responsible before the project starts.
How we handle it at SMK
Our preference is straightforward.
We learn about the business, research the subject and create the first draft. We structure it around the customer, lead generation, design and SEO. The client reviews it, changes anything they want and signs it off.
It keeps the project moving, gives our designers better content to work with and saves the client having to write an entire website from scratch.
Most importantly, it means the words on the website have been planned with the same goal as everything else we do: generating more enquiries for the client.
If you are planning a new website and the thought of having to write every page is putting you off, get in touch with SMK. We can talk you through how we handle the content and what we would need from you.
Frequently asked questions
The main thing
Creating a new website should not turn into weeks of homework for the client.
We have found that taking responsibility for the first draft makes the whole process quicker and easier. It gives us better content to design around, and it gives the client something they can react to rather than asking them to start with a blank page.
If they read it and barely change anything, even better. It normally means we have done our job properly.
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