Writing Content

[Tony Hardy]

When you guys are doing website designs etc, do you normally write the content or is it given to you?

 

[CyberWizard]

Provided for me

Nobody knows their business better than the client

 

[Tony Hardy]

Yeah, that's my view on the situation as well, but, the website i'm busy doing for my cousin, she's a bit vague on everything and I"m having to plug the gaps.

 

[Corrosive]

Yeah, that's my view on the situation as well, but, the website i'm busy doing for my cousin, she's a bit vague on everything and I"m having to plug the gaps.

I agree with CyberWizard. I have got frustrated in the past and tried to write some content but the customer always comes back and says 'no, that is all wrong', even though they haven't provided any themselves so it is time wasted.

We now just make sure our agreement stipulates that balance payment is due when the layout and CMS framework is done. That way we get paid and aren't stressing on the client getting content to us. It is their problem if they don't write any and the website never gets launched. Learnt that one pretty early on.

 

[Minuteman Press]

Provided - then edited, built upon and client reviewed.

 

[dedwardp]

As mentioned above, your working for them as a website designer and not as a copywriter, there's no guarantee you really know anything about the business and so it shouldn't be your responsibility to write the content.

That said, if they give you things like that where the gaps need to plugged in then often I'll string it together in to continuous prose and they can edit it where they feel necessary. But maybe that's more of a personal thing that it feels like an incomplete job when the text is in pieces...

 

[Tony Hardy]

Yeah, I feel like the jobs incomplete unless I have all the text in place. When people view it on my portfolio I want them to see it all complete with text and not body copy etc.

Which leads me onto my second issue, how to display web work on my website.

 

[Corrosive]

Yeah, I feel like the jobs incomplete unless I have all the text in place. When people view it on my portfolio I want them to see it all complete with text and not body copy etc.

Yeah, but you'll go quietly mental waiting for the finalised content from some clients. Trust me, I still have a site from two years ago that hasn't gone live. You just have to live with it and move on to the next job.

 

[rgregory]

I always find that it's earier for a client to write copy/ provide further information if I help them visualise what the requirements are. I tend to make a start on it myself or add lorem ipsum in the places I feel text is required and then they rewrite/tweak with what's already there.

 

[Tony Hardy]

@ Corrosive
Hahaha, the silent death of the web designer Do you then include the website in/on your portfolio site if it isn't live?


@rgregory
Yeah, I would of thought businesses would have a fairly clear idea of what they want to put on their own site.

 

[dedwardp]

Yeah, I feel like the jobs incomplete unless I have all the text in place. When people view it on my portfolio I want them to see it all complete with text and not body copy etc.

Which leads me onto my second issue, how to display web work on my website.

I think if you put a screenshot up of how the site was when you handed it over, then you can either link to it if you like it or not if you don't.

I've done sites before where I've passed it over and they've ruined it aesthetically and made it look pretty poor, so I then haven't wanted to be linking to it any more and would just prefer to show a few screenshots of what it was intended to be like!

 

[Tony Hardy]

Yeah that's the issue I'd have too. I think I'll screenshot my designs as they were when I handed them over like you suggest. Then, once a client has edited and modified them, well, that's up to them.

 

[Katedesign]

I offer to write or help clients write if they can't supply - especially when they want it to be 'optimised'. It is most frustrating when no copy comes along. One of my clients has had a holding page for a whole year!

 

[Corrosive]

@ Corrosive
Hahaha, the silent death of the web designer Do you then include the website in/on your portfolio site if it isn't live?

Yes, every day I cry a little more inside :icon_crying: No, doesn't go in the portfolio until it is live. In fact we don't include everything anyway. We have enough clients and sites to be selective now.

A one of the other guys posted that you can hand over a site to a client and then they ruin it with sub-par photos or pi** poor text. They don't go in either!

 

[Tony Hardy]

Haha fair enough I think I'll just put in shots of before I hand it over to the client