Planning your website content: who writes what, and when

This guide covers what content a new site needs, who should produce each part, in what order, and how to approve it. It does not cover deciding which pages to have (see planning your website's structure), or auditing a site you already have (see our guide on what to keep, fix or remove).

Say you run a small workshop that makes fitted kitchen cabinets. You hire a studio, agree a design and see a handsome homepage with a large photo, three short service blurbs and a row of project cards. Then the questions arrive. The design assumes each project card has a title, a one-line summary and a landscape photo. You have eleven projects, six with phone photos in portrait format and none with a summary. The "Materials" page was designed as a table of finishes with sizes and care notes, and nobody has written them. The enquiry form needs a confirmation message, and nobody has decided what it says.

The designer can rework the layout around what you actually have, or wait for what you meant to have. Either way, the schedule moves, and the cost moves with it. The workshop is hypothetical, and the situation is a familiar planning risk: the design assumed content that did not exist.

A page layout is a set of containers, and the content decides whether they work. Nielsen Norman Group notes that placeholder text such as lorem ipsum is convenient early in design but creates problems if the real content has different characteristics: different lengths, a more complex structure, or missing pieces. The cheapest time to find that out is before the layout is final.

Content also decides what the site says, and that takes the owner's knowledge. Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether a page presents information in a way that makes you want to trust it, shows evidence of the expertise involved, and provides original information. A designer or a copywriter can shape what you know. They cannot invent your prices, your materials or your process.

Government content design guidance puts the sequence in a sentence: content design starts by taking a user need and meeting it in the best way possible. The need comes first, then the words and format, then the layout. A content plan is the working version of that order.

Start from your page list and your brief for each page. Our guide to planning a redesign covers what each page brief should say. For each page, list what it needs from this set:

Two rows are easy to forget. Interface text decides whether a form feels clear or confusing, and it is rarely in the first list. Behind-the-scenes content is where search visibility and accessibility are decided, and it needs the page's real wording to exist first.

Before writing anything new, take stock. Nielsen Norman Group defines a content inventory as a list of every piece of digital content you currently have, captured at the page or asset level, and recommends recording the title and address, dates, owner, format and metadata such as page titles, descriptions and alt text. A content audit is the next step, which evaluates what is in the inventory. For a content plan you need the inventory, and the audit only for the parts you intend to reuse.

Look beyond the old website: brochures, quotes you have sent, emails that answer the same question repeatedly, supplier datasheets, social media posts and photos on staff phones. Mark each as usable as it is, usable with edits, or out of date. Anything a competitor, supplier or customer has written is not yours to reuse without permission.

For every piece, choose one owner. Four options cover most cases.

• You write it. Best for facts only you know and for words in your voice. The cost is your time, and the risk is that it never gets done. Give yourself a deadline per page, not per site.
• A writer or a studio writes it from an interview, if the scope includes it. Best when you know the business and find writing hard. You provide the facts and approve the draft. It needs your time for the interview and a prompt review.
• A specialist writes it. A copywriter, a technical writer, or a photographer for the images. Worth it for pages that carry sales, for technical content, or for photography that must look good at large sizes.
• A staff member or expert writes it. Best for technical detail, and good for first-hand experience. Needs an editor so the pages read as one voice.

Whoever writes, three things apply.

Write for scanning. In Nielsen Norman Group's early research on reading online, 79 percent of test users always scanned any new page and only 16 percent read word by word, and writing that was concise, scannable and objective measured much better for usability than promotional writing. Short paragraphs, clear headings and lists are the baseline.

Say who stands behind the page. Google's guidance asks who created the content and encourages visible authorship, such as a byline or author background, where readers would expect it. For a service business, put a name or a role on pages that give advice.

Be specific. Nielsen Norman Group's guidance on About content recommends concrete facts over marketing language, and users report frustration with stock photography and aggressive sales language. A plain sentence with a real number beats an adjective.

Not everything blocks design. Separate what the design depends on from what can follow.

1. Before design: the homepage message, one example of each page type (a service page, a product page, an article, a contact page) written out in full, the real content for any page with an unusual structure such as a table or a calculator, and a sample of the photos at their real sizes.
2. During design and build: the rest of the main pages, all documents and policies, interface text, and the page titles and descriptions.
3. Before launch: final proofreading, alt text, and a check that every promise on the page is one you can keep.
4. After launch: secondary pages, articles and anything that depends on results.

Put real dates against these, based on how long your people and your photographer actually need. We do not offer a standard timeline here, because it depends on your content and your reviewers. Ask any studio what it needs from you and by when, and build the dates into your scope.

Content that has no approver gets stuck. Set the rules at the start.

• One decision maker. Several people can comment, and one person signs off. Name them.
• Review for accuracy first. Prices, specifications, certifications, dates, areas and legal statements must be correct. Wording changes come second.
• Limit the rounds. Agree how many rounds of feedback each page gets, and what happens when a new request arrives after sign-off.
• Check the promise. If a page says you reply within a day, someone must be assigned to reply within a day.
• Keep one source of truth. A shared document or spreadsheet that holds the current version of each piece, not copies in email.

A content plan is incomplete without an owner for upkeep. Nielsen Norman Group's guidance on trustworthiness lists comprehensive, correct and current content as one of its four factors, and notes that incomplete or out-of-date content undermines credibility. The Stanford Web Credibility guidelines make the same point: update your site's content often, or at least show it has been reviewed recently. Government content design guidance offers a useful rule: content should either be kept up to date or be preserved as a clearly dated record.

For each page, decide who reviews it, how often and what triggers an update, such as a price change or a new certification. Pages with no owner and no review date are the ones that become wrong. See what website maintenance includes for the other upkeep.

The two phrases are used loosely. A useful split: a content strategy decides why the site publishes what it does, for whom, in what voice and measured how. A content plan applies it to a project: what exists, what is needed, who produces it and when. A small business needs a one-page strategy, written as answers to "who is this for, and what must they be able to do", and a thorough plan.

• It will not write the content. It tells you where the effort is needed.
• It will not remove surprises. Some gaps only show once a page is laid out. Leave room for them.
• It will not suit every project. A five-page site you will write yourself can run from a checklist.
• It will not replace subject knowledge. If nobody on your side can supply the facts, say so early; a studio can help find them, but cannot make them up.

Our approach page shows how content is planned alongside structure and design on our projects: a brief for each important page, and a scope agreed in writing before building starts. One page deserves special attention, because it is where buyers decide whether to trust you: read how to write an About page next. If you would like help planning your content, you can discuss your project; you do not need a technical brief to start.

Nielsen Norman Group, a usability researcher, "Content Inventory and Auditing 101" (2020): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/content-audits/

Nielsen Norman Group, a usability researcher, "A Downside of Fake Copy in UI Prototypes" (video): https://www.nngroup.com/videos/fake-copy/

Nielsen Norman Group, a usability researcher, "How Users Read on the Web" (1997): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/

Nielsen Norman Group, a usability researcher, "Trust or Bust: Communicating Trustworthiness in Web Design" (1999): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/communicating-trustworthiness/

Nielsen Norman Group, a usability researcher and a usability researcher, "'About Us' Information on Corporate Websites: User Research Findings" (2019): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/about-us-information-on-websites/

Nielsen Norman Group, a usability researcher, "Great Summaries on 'About Us' Pages Engage Users and Build Trust" (2015): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/about-us-summaries/

Google Search Central, "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content": https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content

GOV.UK Publishing, "Understand content design": https://guidance.publishing.service.gov.uk/writing-to-gov-uk-standards/plan-manage-content/understand-content-design/

Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, B.J. Fogg et al., "Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility" (2002): https://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html