ReportWire

Tag: Web Content

  • How to Design an Eye-Catching Website That Truly Captures Your Audience | Entrepreneur

    How to Design an Eye-Catching Website That Truly Captures Your Audience | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Modern-day websites represent the culmination of years of technological advancement and scientific research, forming incredible symphonies of code and servers that define the internet. However, these digital platforms are also highly expressive art forms. Similar to music or theater, the rules governing a “well-designed website” are in constant flux.

    Consider Spotify Wrapped, for instance. If everyone’s most-streamed songs were consistently the same year-over-year, it wouldn’t be very exciting, would it? Instead, interests evolve and websites are no exception.

    Users now anticipate different things from modern websites compared to 10 or even five years ago. They prioritize accessibility more than ever and are moving away from the thin fonts and minimalistic designs of the 2010s.

    If you aim to design websites that captivate your visitors and engage your audience, staying ahead of these trends is essential. Your website is your storefront on the internet — an indispensable extension of your brand. You wouldn’t want it to appear dated, would you?

    Related: 8 Tips to Make Your Website More Sticky

    Animated hover effects

    Motion has long been a crucial element of high-quality UI design, and that trend isn’t fading away anytime soon. Users increasingly expect high levels of interactivity from the sites they visit. They desire fluid animations and clear signals when elements like buttons and menus are interactive. Enter “hover effects.”

    Graza, a trendy olive oil brand, incorporates hover animations throughout its website. Buttons exhibit interesting depth and images seamlessly transform into videos with a simple wave of your mouse pointer. Other websites may take hover animations to the next level with effects that follow your mouse, revealing additional information or changing the design as your pointer navigates the landing page.

    Implementing this trend is easier said than done. Poorly-executed complex animations can be distracting. On a technical level, slow animations can make your website appear dated and may even harm your SEO performance. Instead, aim to use animations thoughtfully and judiciously. Create interactions that excite and delight, but don’t add these effects just for the sake of having them.

    Dark, futuristic websites

    In recent years, Apple has been showcasing its “Pro” series of products with dark, futuristic landing pages. Check out the iPhone 15 Pro’s product page and you’ll notice vibrant colors set against a dark background. This has been a growing trend for years, one that continues to gain momentum.

    This website design leverages the highlighting effect of black and black-adjacent backgrounds to emphasize vibrant, almost “neon” colors. Figma and Github also embrace this style for various landing pages and features. Others commonly use it to promote conferences and events, as well. This isn’t a trend exclusive to tech companies, either. Fashion brands, often on the cutting edge of design, are adopting it too. Nike created a vibrant community website using their “volt yellow” color against a futuristic dark design.

    Remember, this trend is all about dark backgrounds, bright colors and sharp angles. When designing a website this way, aim to create something that feels like it’s from 3023, not 2023.

    Related: How Modern Technology is Rewriting the Rules of Marketing

    Typography-first design

    Arguably, the most crucial part of a website has always been its content — that’s why people visit a website, after all. Modern design acknowledges this with large, beautiful fonts that capture visitors’ attention and quickly convey the necessary information.

    Gumroad, for example, utilizes typography in an almost magazine-like way, creating a website that feels exceptionally fresh and modern. In fact, magazines are an excellent example of this trend. Websites that utilize a typography-first design approach use large, creative and attention-grabbing fonts in a thoughtful way, much like a high-end magazine, to create a unique experience centered around information.

    The key takeaway here is that these websites feel “modern” in a way that minimalism no longer does. Audiences, especially Gen Z members, have developed an appetite for maximalist designs. This trend is a trend you’ll quickly notice when walking up and down the aisles of Whole Foods.

    Gradients

    Sticking with the “maximalist” theme is the unsurprising revival of gradients. Modern audiences love bright, interesting colors and gradients are the ideal vehicle to deliver those colors.

    Stripe has long used gradients in its branding, featuring a lava lamp-esque animated gradient on its homepage for quite some time now. Spotify, too, has always embraced striking gradients as part of its well-regarded design language.

    The common thread among these websites is the liberal use of exciting, brand-oriented colors. These gradients accentuate other design elements and can help present a brand’s website as friendlier and more inviting.

    Related: Website Builder Features That Will Boost Your Agency’s Bottom Line

    Putting it all together

    A perceptive observer may notice that many of the example websites listed above incorporate a mix of these upcoming design trends. That’s the real secret to website design — knowing which trends to use and, more importantly, when. While it’s crucial to create designs that feel fresh and modern, you also want to ensure that your decisions respect and empower your brand.

    Luckily, once you figure out where the pieces fit, implementing these design trends becomes a breeze. A drag-and-drop website, offering flexibility and access to front-end code, can empower your team to craft cutting-edge designs that keep you ahead of the curve.

    Take some time to consider your next steps, experiment a bit and start building. You wouldn’t want these trends to go stale.

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    Itai Sadan

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  • 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Working With ChatGPT | Entrepreneur

    5 Mistakes to Avoid When Working With ChatGPT | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As the owner of multiple content websites, I use ChatGPT every day for multiple tasks, including — but not limited to — content creation. ChatGPT is always there for me, whether crafting texts or discussing my business goals with me.

    But as with all powerful tools, ChatGPT and similar Large Language Models (LLMs) have their limitations. I have stumbled upon them many times during my time working with AI. If you rely on ChatGPT in your business without understanding its limitations, that’s a recipe for disaster.

    Here are some common mistakes that you could be making if you think ChatGPT thinks like a human:

    Related: The Top 3 Do’s and Don’ts of Integrating ChatGPT into Your Business

    1. Neglecting to fact-check AI output

    I use AI tools like ChatGPT to create informational web content, which has proven to be an effective strategy for boosting my publishing business. The articles produced by AI writing tools utilizing models like GPT-4 are typically well-written and helpful. Of course, using these tools is also infinitely more cost-effective than hiring writers.

    However, while the AI-generated articles provide a great starting point, they are rarely robust enough to be published as-is without human oversight. It is crucial to thoroughly fact-check the content, as AI tools can get details wrong, especially more nuanced facts that fall outside general knowledge. Make a point to check dates, locations, numbers and any claim that seems very specific. In many cases, the claims are unsubstantiated and need to be taken out of your article.

    2. Using the generic ChatGPT style

    Left to its own devices without any guidance or customization, ChatGPT tends to use a particular writing style. This default style is typically authoritative in tone, yet also dull, lifeless and formal-sounding. It sometimes reminds me of high school essay writing. This would not be an effective style choice for crafting engaging, compelling web content that connects with readers.

    When utilizing ChatGPT or other AI writing assistants, prompting the model for your particular style is important. One helpful technique is to provide the AI with a few samples of your own writing, then ask it to analyze your style and implement similar stylistic elements into the new text it generates.

    3. Failing to guide the AI in a structured, step-by-step manner

    While ChatGPT is capable of generating coherent text, its output quality suffers greatly when prompted to produce long-form content all in one go. A far better approach is to break down the writing process into stages:

    • Discuss the topic, goals and target audience with ChatGPT to help set the stage.

    • Ask the AI to craft an outline based on your discussion. Assess the outline, and make sure it covers the topic properly.

    • Prompt ChatGPT to write individual sections one at a time, offering additional guidance and examples as required.

    • Ask it to suggest improvements for its own work to refine and polish the wording further.

    • Thoroughly edit and refine the full draft as needed.

    Guiding ChatGPT in a structured, step-by-step manner with regular human feedback tends to yield much higher quality writing. This approach is far superior to simply prompting the AI to produce a full piece in one shot and leaving it to its own devices for long stretches of uninterrupted text generation.

    In the web publishing industry, we have tools that create quality content based on a similar method with many pre-determined prompts and a built-in back-and-forth process. You can achieve the same by prompting ChatGPT to do the same.

    Related: How Can Companies Use ChatGPT for Content Marketing?

    4. Using LLMs for tasks outside language processing

    LLMs like ChatGPT excel at language processing and generation tasks. They converse with us in the same way another human would. It’s easy to assume they can do other things that humans do — like counting, for example.

    ChatGPT confidently informed me that the paragraph above contained 42 words. Go ahead and count. It’s easy for you to do as a human. You’ll see right away that the correct number is 37.

    When prompted to generate a numbered list of all the words in the paragraph, ChatGPT struggled badly, either apologizing that it could not get the count right or actually fabricating nonexistent words to reach the incorrect word count it had provided.

    Additional areas I’ve found ChatGPT has considerable difficulty with are solving simple anagram word puzzles or even reliably reversing a string of characters.

    There is a solid rationale behind these weaknesses — ChatGPT was trained to mimic conversational human responses, which it does amazingly well. However, it was not designed for tasks like arithmetic, word games or manual data manipulation. Being aware of exactly when to rely on its language strengths versus utilizing other, more specialized systems is key.

    5. Believing the AI’s self-assessment of capabilities

    When needing to determine if ChatGPT or a similar language AI can handle a particular task well, avoid directly asking the model itself. ChatGPT does not have accurate insight into the full extent of its strengths and limitations.

    For example, when I inquired whether ChatGPT could count words accurately, it confidently assured me it could handle such a simple math task. But as the earlier example illustrates, it failed at word counting multiple times. To assess an LLM’s true capabilities, real-world testing is far more informative than taking the AI’s word on what it can or cannot do.

    Related: 3 Ways to Use ChatGPT to Spark Your Creativity

    The future is here, but tread carefully

    ChatGPT and similar AI tools represent an incredible step forward that can amplify our capabilities if used judiciously. But these are not human equivalents — merely brilliant mimics lacking complete self-awareness.

    By understanding their limitations, prompting creatively, guiding systematically, minding the task suitability and verifying through hands-on testing, we can maximize value while avoiding potential pitfalls.

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    Anat El Hashahar (Anne Moss)

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  • 3 Principles for Scaling Content With AI Without Sacrificing Quality | Entrepreneur

    3 Principles for Scaling Content With AI Without Sacrificing Quality | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As a web publisher, I’ve always focused on scaling content production. During 2022, we published a high volume of new articles across our websites — upwards of a thousand new items in a typical month. We employed a team of more than 100 writers and editors to accomplish this gargantuan task. Fast-forward to the middle of 2023, and we now achieve the same publication numbers but with a team of only ten content creators.

    We do this through harnessing the power of AI. We were early adopters of fully transitioning to AI-assisted content. And we did that without lowering our editorial standards.

    Scaling your content strategy is always challenging. Even without considering AI, there’s always been a tightrope between quantity and quality. Tip the balance, and you either can’t keep up with demand or lose the trust of your audience. Bringing AI into the equation meant we could speed up production significantly.

    But what about the quality? Our main challenge was to create workflows and processes that would allow us to scale AI-assisted content production while maintaining the same quality as before. To achieve this delicate balance of quantity and quality while using AI, we created a new system based on three key principles.

    Related: Top 5 Ways AI Can Enhance Your Content-Creation Process

    Principle 1: Human-AI collaboration

    You may have noticed that I mentioned neither writers nor editors when describing our current team. We no longer use those terms in our team. Instead, we now call the people who create our content “AI Wranglers.” These people are not writers; they’re AI-human collaboration experts. Using prompting strategies and AI tools, our content creators can develop a first draft quickly and then work on improving on that.

    Depending on the type of article, our content creators may use a writing tool or work directly with an AI such as ChatGPT. When using ChatGPT directly, they follow a structured creation process that includes prompts that:

    1. Start by asking the AI to give an overview of the topic. The content creator may need to provide some background context if the AI needs help getting up to speed.

    2. Give the AI clear instructions on the tone and style, such as “aim for a conversational tone and keep the writing at eighth-grade level.”

    3. Have the AI suggest an outline it thinks would work best.

    4. Then, go section by section, collaborating with the AI to put together the full draft.

    The structured prompting helps our content creators speed up the process and quickly develop a first draft.

    Related: Here’s How Your Business Can Use 3 Popular AI Content Creation Tools

    Principle 2: Quality enhancement processes

    Some websites publish what is known in our industry as “one-click content.” As the name implies, these articles are created using AI-based tools to generate an article in a single iteration. These articles are typically published immediately with no additional steps.

    There’s no denying that one-click AI content allows for extremely fast content production scaling. Moreover, this type of content goes way beyond the old-school “content spinners.” In many cases, today’s AI content tools — especially those employing the GPT-4 API — create coherent and sometimes even insightful content. And, of course, this hands-off approach significantly lowers the production cost.

    However, our experience has shown us that relying on one-click content often leads to subpar articles in more ways than one. While the AI can produce amazing output, that content still needs to be refined by capable humans. It’s the only way to reliably and consistently produce results that meet our publication standards. That’s why the AI is only used to develop a first draft. The AI gives us a head start, but our human content creators take the content to the finish line.

    Our quality enhancement process includes three layers: Fact-checking, reducing fluff and adjusting the article to make sure it aligns with the reader’s needs.

    Verifying that the generated article does indeed “deliver the goods” is the content creator’s first concern. They ensure the topic is fully covered and that the reader’s questions have been answered in full.

    Fact-checking is another pillar of our process. While constantly improving, AI systems can still occasionally produce inaccurate information. Our content creators thoroughly fact-check the article to make sure numbers, dates, locations, names and any other factual information is valid. They also link back to authoritative sources to reference important facts.

    Last but not least, the content creators improve the writing style. They often clean up redundant words, sentences and even entire paragraphs to ensure the article is succinct and, therefore, more helpful.

    In a way, you could say that our content creators are editors who specialize in working with a highly prolific writer. That writer may be silicone-based, but it certainly is not without flaws. Competent editors are needed in order to take this writer’s work to the next level.

    Related: How to Enhance Business Automation and Unlock New Levels of Operational Efficiency

    Principle 3: Reducing production time

    Before AI, a single article would take about five hours to write. Now, with a robust first draft in place, it takes our trained content specialists between one and two hours to generate the finished text. And while our process is more costly than producing one-click AI content, we don’t sacrifice quality.

    This AI-assisted approach allowed us to maintain high output and quality while reducing costs. Furthermore, we keep looking for ways to improve our initial prompts and the quality enhancement process. Through this continuous improvement, we can further reduce the cost per article and scale production even more.

    When you save time and maintain quality, it’s a win-win for everyone. Your team, business and, most importantly, readers benefit. With the right strategies, content creators can leverage AI to enhance rather than replace human creativity and judgment.

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    Anat El Hashahar (Anne Moss)

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  • Why Brands Should Control User-Generated Content | Entrepreneur

    Why Brands Should Control User-Generated Content | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    User-generated content (UGC) is a sweeping trend at the intersection of social media, ecommerce and short-form video’s explosive growth. For brands, it’s also a marketing opportunity. Brands want relatable human beings with whom their consumers can identify to create content that promotes their products and values.

    But now, in the age of millions of user-generated social media posts, how can brands account for all of the content out there that’s associated with their name? The dawn of generative AI tools only adds to the problem, piling on unrelatable, machine-built images and videos, leaving brands to sort through mountains of artificial content.

    If brands can’t assess the landscape of their associated content online, how can they leverage the opportunity to move the needle on their marketing goals with relatable human narratives while avoiding brand-unsafe associations?

    A new kind of UGC is taking shape: brand-directed user-generated content. With it, brands can still leverage the local connections and relatability of everyday customers and creators, but they can also shape UGC messaging, review the content to ensure brand safety and own the content to control how it’s shared.

    Here’s how brands can exert control over their UGC to leverage it for their advantage, why safety and standardization must underpin shared solutions between brands and creators, and how companies can activate hyper-local creators to drive business outcomes in local communities and stores.

    Related: The Beginner’s Guide to User-Generated Content

    Give clear instructions for content creation

    As brands explore the possibilities of partnering with everyday creators, a number of benefits immediately present themselves. The cost savings of working with accessible creators versus big-name influencers or even traditional advertising agencies speak for themselves. Affordability makes it easier for brands to experiment with new messaging strategies in their video content without breaking the bank.

    But how can brands ensure that the content they’re getting from affordable, relatable creators conveys the desired message and aligns with the brand’s specific vision?

    Communication from brands to creators is a relatively new area of growth that’s bolstering the viability of UGC as a marketing tool. For instance, a brand could clarify to creators that they want video content that explicitly highlights their new sustainable packaging. Controlling the narrative through clear creative directives is crucial for brands, particularly those with established reputations that want to uphold a certain level of quality and consistency as their content multiplies.

    Another benefit of brands giving creators clear instructions for video content is speed. A brand can specify its parameters to a creator and get a usable piece of relevant content back the very same day. In the traditional world of promotional video production, that process could take weeks or even months. But by collaborating with creators and communicating clear guidelines, brands can get new content for their websites, social media accounts or advertisements in mere hours.

    In contrast to influencer-posted UGC, brands that control the creative process and own the final product get far more marketing versatility from the piece of media. For example, the brand could use the video to quickly and affordably test and learn, share on social media accounts to stay active, integrate into paid advertising campaigns or embed into ecommerce sites to organically connect with consumers across the digital landscape.

    Related: If You’re Not Using This Type of Content in Your Marketing, You’re Missing Out

    Ensure brand safety and validated workflows

    Once a creator makes a video for a brand, what happens next? For brands, it’s optimal to set up an arrangement that allows the company to own the content after its creation and control how it gets shared or posted. When brands own the content, they get to determine how it gets used. This is another distinction from influencer marketing, where brands pay internet celebrities to not only create content but also distribute it.

    But as UGC grows in prominence and popularity, it’s becoming clear that both brands and creators need tools to efficiently connect and do business. A clean workflow that sits between the creator and the brand ensures that content is produced in accordance with clear goals and brand safety, creators get paid fairly for their work, and brands ultimately own the content and control its distribution as a piece of marketing material.

    New marketplaces are emerging that allow brands to quickly find the right creators for the content they’re seeking and efficiently communicate their creative requirements. With these new marketplaces also comes new technology that’s able to validate the actors on both sides of the contract and safely deliver the content through a secure platform, bringing standardization and legitimacy to UGC to maximize its efficacy.

    Related: How to Upgrade Your Digital Branding With User-Generated Content

    Work with hyper-local contributors

    When brands are seeking out creators, they don’t have to cast a wide net. In fact, brands can identify creators in specific areas or communities to deliver hyper-local messaging and relate to residents of the area even more. Brands and retailers can even send creators to a local store to pick up the product to feature in the video, eliminating the process of shipping it to them and expediting content creation.

    Local UGC doesn’t have to just come from creators or customers. Brands and retailers are starting to realize the potential of their own people, from sales associates to product managers. Companies can leverage existing talent to make videos that speak to products in their work environment and leverage their unique knowledge of the product. This also lets workers earn some extra money on top of their hourly rates, uplifting employees and fostering loyalty.

    As brands continue solving the puzzle of empowering creators, customers and employees to generate useful and valuable content, they’ll discover the benefits of clear communication, efficient production and safe workflows. This will unlock a whole new arena of scalable, highly relatable video content for brands.

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    Mya Papolu

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  • How to Make Your Brand’s Content 300% More Effective | Entrepreneur

    How to Make Your Brand’s Content 300% More Effective | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    As a marketer, creating new content consistently can be a daunting, time-consuming task. The pressure to produce fresh and unique content for social media, blog posts, thought leadership and other marketing channels often causes those things to end up being put on the back burner. However, one way to ease the pressure is to repurpose content to make the most of what you’re producing.

    Repurposing content means taking existing content and transforming it into different formats to reach a broader audience. When producing a piece of content, think about six different ways you can use it. This blog post will explore the benefits of repurposing your content and how to do it effectively.

    Related: How to Repurpose Your Social Media Content

    Why should you repurpose content?

    1. More effective: Research shows integrated marketing campaigns are 300% more effective than single or dual-channel marketing campaigns. You receive the best results when you use at least four different media channels. The more a customer’s journey is coherent, cohesive, strategic and deliberate, the more likely you are to create brand loyalty.

    2. Reach a wider audience: When you repurpose content, you can reach a wider audience and reach people you may have missed with the original content. Not everyone consumes content in the same way. Some people prefer reading blog posts, while others prefer watching videos or listening to podcasts. Repurposing your content into different formats allows you to meet your audience where they are and cater to their preferences.

    3. Increase your content’s lifespan: Creating new content can be time-consuming and costly. Repurposing content extends its lifespan, allowing you to get more value from the content you have already created. Additionally, repurposing content also allows you to update and refresh old content, making it relevant to your audience again.

    4. Improve your SEO: Repurposing content can also help improve your search engine optimization (SEO). When you repurpose content, you can target new keywords, improving your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can increase your website’s visibility and drive more traffic to your website.

    How to repurpose content

    1. Turn blog posts into social media posts: Blog posts can be turned into bite-sized social media posts. You can take key points or quotes from the blog post and turn them into posts, graphics or videos to share on social media. This can help drive more traffic to your website and increase engagement on your social media channels.

    2. Turn blog posts into videos: Turning blog posts into videos is another way to repurpose content. You can create a video summarizing the blog post or create an animated video that highlights the key takeaways from the post. Videos are a popular format, and creating videos can help you reach a wider audience.

    3. Turn webinars into blog posts and vice versa: If you have recorded webinars, you can repurpose the content by turning it into blog posts. You can summarize the key points discussed in the webinar and turn them into a blog post. This can help drive more traffic to your website and provide value to your audience. You can also turn a blog post into a webinar or workshop to share.

    4. Turn blog posts into infographics: Infographics are a great way to present information visually. You can turn your blog post into an infographic, highlighting the key takeaways from the post. This can help increase engagement and shares on social media.

    5. Repurpose videos onto multiple platforms: If your company creates a brand video, you can repurpose this in multiple ways. You can share it on your YouTube channel — the second-largest search engine in the world. You can cut the video into shorter, trailer-type videos for Instagram and Facebook reels. You can put the video on your website, and you can also share it in an email newsletter or email campaign.

    6. Use graphic ad campaigns across multiple ad channels: If you’re putting together a traditional ad buy for a physical billboard, repurpose the design and strategy for other ads as well. You can resize and repurpose for digital ads, online or print ads, or an email or direct mail campaign.

    7. Repurpose media relations placements: Another great way to repurpose content is earned or paid media placements. When you garner a placement, make sure to use your megaphone to amplify the reach. Share the link on your social channels, on your website and in email newsletters or campaigns.

    Related: 5 Tips & Tactics to Repurpose Content Wisely

    Example

    For example, say your company produces a new brand video for your website. You can repurpose this in several ways:

    • Upload to YouTube

    • Produce shorter “sizzle” videos for social media

    • Snippet still images and video assets to include in media pitches

    • Pull quote graphics, infographics and GIFs for social media sharing

    • Put the video’s message into a blog post

    • Include the video in an email campaign

    In conclusion, repurposing content is an effective way to reach a wider audience, increase the lifespan of your content and improve your SEO. There are many ways to repurpose content, and the examples listed above are just a few. Repurposing content can save time and resources while helping you reach your marketing goals.

    Related: The Best Way to Get More Results From Your Content

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    Kelly Fletcher

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  • What Comes First in Website Development — Design or Copy?

    What Comes First in Website Development — Design or Copy?

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The age-old question in the digital design world persists: What comes first in website development — design or copy? Many digital design agencies have their own workflow strategies that best satisfy this question, but ultimately, it comes down to project needs and considerations. Nevertheless, this query continues to ricochet between copy first, design after, and design preceding copy. When considering this stance, our own digital design agency’s perspective suggests a healthy balance between design and copy development. Design and copy should be curated and implemented in tandem to fill in any gaps that this duality informs. Without copy, a design is simply a visual layout, void of a clear user journey or of emotion. Yet without design, copy is merely information without placement.

    When designing or working with an agency for new website development or refresh, copy and design need to complement one another. To truly achieve a productively developed website, equilibrium needs to occur at the starting point. Let’s dissect how each strategy differs from the other and how to ultimately balance both for your next business’s web refresh.

    Related: Should You Have Content or Design First?

    Copy first, design later

    The conversation around “copy first, design later” stems from the idea that “content is king.” Although a popular phrase in the digital design industry, it often becomes utilized as a blanket statement to design when it does not always apply. Every digital product is different and requires different specifications. Sometimes, in web design, stakeholders have their own content prepared and ready; in this case — “content first, design later” can work seamlessly here.

    Designers then can utilize the provided content and design around it. This allows design teams to align the tone of the design with the voice of the content and curate a layout with the provided information. Ultimately, it provides design teams with a contextual frame of mind for navigating a website, user pathways and journeys. Content informs the pulse of a design because, with “lorem ipsum” placeholders, it can be hard to fully visualize how a design is conveying a brand story, mission and more.

    Yet, “copy first” has an Achilles’ heel — and that’s leaving room for wasted time. Many design agencies practice the approach of allowing content writers (whether from stakeholders, internal teams or freelance writers) to curate content first, then pass on that information to design around it. However, developing content takes time. Content must evoke the tone of a brand or organization, consider SEO purposes, ensure the user navigates the site without cognitive friction and more. Therefore, waiting on content writers to fully develop their messaging, slows the process down, because designers are waiting for the information on how to align the design with the content tonality. It’s not realistic to pause the design phase as content is being developed, particularly if there are deadlines from stakeholders.

    Moreover, without visually allowing writers to see the space in which their copy will go, it leaves room for error. If your content writer develops copy that is too long to fit into a design layout, there is more time wasted on content editing and back and forth.

    Design first, copy later

    To avoid the errors of “copy first,” many have adopted the “design first, content later” approach. This strategy is wildly used because it helps inform the tone of the content based on the design. If a design is rich with sharp geometric shapes, an electric color pallet and flashy animations, chances are the content will evoke a tonality of confidence, determination and perhaps even an edgy voice. This helps avoid the mistake of writers misaligning the tone with the design — because writers can see what emotions are evoked within the visual experience, and it streamlines their writing processes, too. Additionally, understanding the design layout also tells writers how much content to develop, saving time on content refinement later.

    However, this strategy has its flaws as well. Sometimes writing teams do not work directly with designers, particularly if they are an additional hire-on for the project, resulting in possible delayed communication or issues sharing the design. This affects your project pipeline because your content writer may have to scramble to curate copy if there is a lull in communication. Further, the design process is iterative and is always bound to shape and shift. Once presented to stakeholders, if your design is filled with lorem ipsum placeholder content, it can lead to confusion about what certain sections are meant to be. If posed with the question of what information will go where without contextual visualization, it muddles the overall experience.

    Related: Use These Web Design Tricks to Grow Your Business Exponentially

    Ultimately, balance is the answer

    When it comes to fusing design with copy, balance is ultimately the best approach to prevent the overlap of issues. It is highly important that when a website is coming to fruition, design and copy development begin in the same breath. Synchronizing both efforts early on helps the website start off on the right footing without mix-ups. Design and copy are both undeniably important to each other’s development. To convey the right tone and emotion, they need to work together as opposed to clashing.

    Further, to truly attain specific feedback from stakeholders, having both content and design together allows them to see both design and copy working together. This isn’t to say that your content copy is fully finalized — rather, much like design, it iteratively changes based on feedback. Sometimes in the early stages of a project, copy can even look like cues on what the purpose of the content will be in each section, and that can further allow stakeholders to provide feedback on the placement early on without having the full content finished. Early development of content and design is a great way to achieve productivity. Both strategies should commence at the same starting line, particularly at the wireframe stage if possible.

    How then, can this balance be implemented into your design strategies? First, it’s all about communication and information sharing. Whether in-house, from stakeholders or from freelance writing teams, communication is what will ensure both design and writing teams are working cohesively. Always be sure to fill in your content writers early on with any layout wireframes or schemes to give them a visual idea of how much content will be needed, how many headers or sub-headers will be curated and what the intention of call-to-actions will be/where it will lead. Communication will ultimately be an asset when balancing these two elements of design.

    Related: 8 Crucial Features Your Website Must Have

    Another best practice to remember when striking this balance is ensuring there is a clear understanding of the tonality of the website. If the copy tone and voice do not align with the experience of the visual story of a digital product, users’ cognitive response will be poor, causing friction and confusion. Along with communicating on layout, copy and design teams should be clear about the overall tone. This can be achieved through iterative calls with stakeholders to ensure both teams are on the right trajectory and even by scheduling calls on a daily or weekly cadence internally.

    Copy curation is all part of the design process, but without aligning these two practices, it can leave room for a mismatched experience. Therefore, commencing these two processes at the same, early starting point will make all the difference.

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    Goran Paun

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  • How to Outrank AI-Generated Content

    How to Outrank AI-Generated Content

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    ChatGPT, an AI-powered content creation tool, has gained widespread popularity. GPT stands for Generative Pre-training Transformer. It is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can generate human-like content by analyzing language patterns and a knowledge database. Marketers are using it to produce massive quantities of high-quality content, but it lacks credibility without a recognized author. That’s where you can leverage Google EAT and other tactics to outrank GPT spammers and your competition.

    What is Google EAT?

    EAT — or Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness — is a ranking signal in Google’s algorithm. Real people called “quality raters” use it to determine the quality and relevance of search results based on Search Quality Rater Guidelines. This feedback helps train Google’s algorithm to deliver better results to users.

    • Expertise is the author’s depth of knowledge on the topic. You can demonstrate expertise through educational credentials, professional experience and published works.

    • Authority is the author’s reputation within an industry or community. You can demonstrate authority through media mentions, industry awards and speaking engagements.

    • Trustworthiness is the credibility and reliability of the content and its source. You can demonstrate trustworthiness through references and citations, transparent author bios and clear contact information.

    In general, websites with high EAT are more likely to appear higher on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) compared to other content where all other factors are equal. EAT is especially important for websites in industries where accurate and reliable information is critical, such as healthcare, finance and legal.

    Related: 7 Best SEO Tools to Help You Rank Higher in Google

    Why Google EAT matters during an explosion of machine-generated content

    As ChatGPT and other automated content creation tools become more popular, we can expect a surge in search engine spam. These tools can produce content quickly and inexpensively. Consequently, Google must adjust its algorithm to prioritize credible writers. A viable solution is to give more weight to the EAT ranking signal. They’ll continue to prioritize articles associated with trusted authors and fine-tune their algorithm to detect the legitimacy and quality of content attributed to them. Google must also score content according to the value of the information contained and stylistic attributes such as engagement and readability.

    I recently described how human writers have some advantages over AI on a podcast. People have imagination and can generate original data with surveys and experiments. We can then use data storytelling to make our content stand out in SERPs. We can also grow our audience on social media and drive traffic to our pages. This “social signal” can increase the legitimacy of our content.

    Related: Top 5 Ways AI Can Enhance Your Content-Creation Process

    What to do when you can’t demonstrate EAT on your own

    If you have a limited amount of influence, you can leverage the Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness of established authors and influencers to grow your brand. Here’s how:

    1. Pay top influencers in your industry to write articles, record videos and create other content they agree not to publish elsewhere until after Google indexes your pages. Be sure to disclose payments when legally required to do so.

    2. Identify, quote and write about well-respected people in your industry. Then, contact them, or tag them in social posts that point back to your content. Some of these people will share your content with their audiences.

    3. Build genuine relationships with famous people in your industry. You can network with influencers at events, on LinkedIn and on other social platforms. Transform those relationships into mutually beneficial collaborations to grow your authority.

    Related: How Influencer Marketing Took Power, and What the Future Holds

    Machine-generated content will improve, and platforms will use it to deliver personalized content. Authors can use it for ideation, outlines and summaries. However, spammers will use it for gaming search engines. To future-proof yourself as a content creator, optimize for Google EAT, and create unique articles that only humans can initiate.

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    Dennis Consorte

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