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Content is one of the most important—if not the most important—building blocks of a good website.

To most Internet users, content IS the website. They aren’t thinking about the SEO or intricacies of the sitemap, they’re simply interacting with the words and images that appear on the website.

What exactly do I mean by content?

Right now as you look at this very page, you’re interacting with content. You’re reading my written words and you’re looking at various image files. Both of those are forms of content.

If you go to my homepage, you’ll see videos playing— that is content, too.

Content communicates with visitors to your site; it provides information, tells stories, engages, persuades, relates to, entertains, and directs traffic around your site.

Without content, there wouldn’t really be a website to interact with. It would just be empty framework.

This is why, in any web design project, getting content from your clients is of utmost importance! And getting that content on time and in full is absolutely vital to the success and timeline of any quality web design project.

Unfortunately, getting this quality content can feel like pulling teeth sometimes.

But fortunately I’ve learned over the years how to effectively communicate with clients to ensure that content is ready to go by the project start date.

I wanted to share my strategies with others out there who are running their own web design business and struggling with this problem.

This article should arm you with new approaches and procedures and in turn add a new level of professionalism and ease to your business mechanics. So let’s get started!

As a web designer, what’s the best way to get content from clients?

Be clear about content expectations from the very beginning

Not only should you be incredibly firm and clear with your clients about content expectations, but you should do this well before the project start date. In fact, content expectations and deadlines should be explicitly discussed before any contract and invoice are completed.

In order to provide a final quote and timeline, you and your client will inevitably need to have several exchanges to gauge the size and complexity of the project. These initial communications are the first time that you should be very clear that you are not a content developer and that you do require clients provide their own content, both text and visual, which you—as the designer—will use strategically and aesthetically to create the site.

Include a content stipulation in the contract

In my contract, I reiterate that all content is to be provided by the client prior to the project start date. I also add an initial box beside this line so that the client is sure to read it.

Create a space for your client to easily upload the content you need

As soon as the contract and invoice are completed, I set up a Google Drive folder for the client to upload content in an organized way. This is a very important aspect of the whole project, and I go into much more detail on this in my upcoming course How To Start A Squarespace Design Business. You can sign up below to be notified when the course launches (which should be before Christmas 2020).

Check in with the client a week before the project start date arrives

As you might notice, the name of the game here is reiteration. Most of my projects are scheduled to begin on a Monday, so I make sure to check in to their Google Drive folder on the preceding Thursday.

If anything is missing or is lackluster, I send a polite but firm email letting them know per our contract that sufficient content does need to be uploaded before our Monday morning start date.

I tell them that if they have questions to let me know, and I remind them that lovely stock photos can be found on websites such as Unsplash or Pexels, and graphics can easily be created using Canva. If they have questions about what to include on a website, I provide tips and also advise them to check out websites they love and pay attention to the text/storytelling and the images used as inspiration.

What if the client does not have content and is clueless about how to create it?

Some clients are simply not tech-savvy or far too busy to find or create their own content.

For this scenario, I recommend these two possible solutions:

1. Offer content development as an add-on service to the web design project (be sure to adjust the overall quote and timeline to account for the work)
   
   or
   

2. Recommend them to a content developer— this can be someone you know or you can point them to a platform such as Fiverr or Upwork

As we speak, I’m working to create a course for anyone who wants to start a Squarespace design business. It’s not a design course, teaching you how to design, instead it’s focused on the business end of things: how to get clients, how to outline your packages and offerings, how to communicate effectively with clients in various situations, quoting and scheduling projects, everything about contracts and invoices, taxes, you name it.

The best part is that it’s very simple. I don’t use a lot of software— I run my business very minimally and this has worked well for me over the last three years.

I hope to have the course ready to go before Christmas 2020, so if you’d like to be notified when it launches, sign up for my newsletter:

Hopefully you found this article helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to leave those in the comments section below and I’ll try to respond as soon as I can!

Take care and I’ll talk to you again soon~

x
Tiffany

Welcome!

Hey there! I’m Tiffany ~ a Squarespace Web Designer & SEO Expert. I design beautiful & professional websites that rank well on Google, and I teach one of the most top-ranked Squarespace SEO courses here!

Feel free to contact me at: tiffany@tiffany-davidson.com

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