I'm not crazy: 10 great, content-friendly web designs

A marketer walks into a meeting, ready to see the newest designs for their client’s site. The new design is beautiful. It makes everyone weep with joy. It’s also totally devoid of text.

The marketer (or SEO, or copywriter, or strategist) walks back out of the meeting, punches a wall until their hand flattens, and then goes back to work.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

A few months later, they’re called into an "all-hands" meeting. Turns out the CEO just read about SEO, or conversion rate optimization, or the need for great copywriting. Now she wants to know why the shiny new site doesn’t rank, converts like crap and seems to spur more questions than it answers.

I'd swear that this whole internet thing started as a way to pass around information. And text content remains the most foolproof way to communicate online. Text content = information.

Far too many designers seem to think text is the enemy of great design. To me, they’re inseparable: Web sites that best fulfill their business goals design for text content, instead of burying it. When I say that, though, everyone in the room looks at me like I just started gibbering madly about purple elephants and acid trips.

In the interest of either proving my sanity or showing there are other crazy people out there, here are 10 spectacular text-friendly web sites that also happen to brilliantly do their assigned jobs:

No page of the site resists text more than the home page. The home page is like text Gore-Tex. If I suggest as little as five words of real, readable copy on some home pages, the design team looks at me like I turned into a large, talking turd.

And no, a small paragraph of 5-point type that’s 2 shades away from the background color and 200 pixels below the footer is not a "compromise". I want home pages that are informative and easy to read. Can we do that? Turns out, yes:

37Signals remains the state of the art when it comes to simplicity. Check out their company home page:

Lots of text, and very few images. The page loads and renders in 5 seconds. It looks great. And it’s unique in layout and concept, or at least was, before people started copying it.

A lot of brand managers tell me that 37Signals isn’t a "real company", though. That’s ridiculous, but I'll play along and show companies that sell or promote stuff we all know about, like web hosting.

Media Temple sells (oddly enough) web hosting. Their home page has a purty image with a slide show, but it also has a decent proportion of text, and full text navigation, all above the fold:

It’s not exactly a content bonanza, but it’s clear, and it’s obvious the content wasn’t slapped up there as an afterthought.

Doesn’t get much more traditional than wine. Jax Vineyards created a slick layout that presents the product, front-and-center:

Look at how they use type to create a beautiful, easy-to-read page. Their font choices and line spacing make me sweaty. Yes, I’m a typography geek.

The point, though, is that this page practically reads itself to you. The reader can take it all in in a matter of seconds.

I’m not thrilled with the way they page between wines using javascript, but that’s the SEO in me complaining. This is still a great text-driven design.

Adobe makes Flash and Photoshop, among other things. But their home page is a study in creative, readable text placement in a bright, deep design:

Aside from the logo, every letter on this page is cut-and-paste-able text.

A great, content-friendly design doesn’t have to have tons of text on it. The Emptees site focuses on images, but also includes the "just arrived" and other listings at the bottom of the page, and the "What’s going on here?" section at the top right.

That adds up to a page where I can quickly figure out my next steps, and learn about the company at the same time.

Once the content team wins the Battle of the Home Page, they often lose the War of Internal Pages. Every page on a site is a potential landing page. So providing text-friendly internal pages can be every bit as important:

37Signals’ HighRise leaves nothing to the imagination, explaining their entire product on a single, easy-to-read page that makes you want the product:

Not everyone can pull this off. You need fantastic copywriters, and a designer who can use whitespace, columns and type the way most of use air.

O2 Alternative, a web site design and development shop, works in bright colors while still emphasizing information:

This is a design firm that made a conscious choice to build text into their layout. Note the line spacing, use of large fonts to make their site easy to read, and my favorite part, the red peppers.

Did you know that you can sell more products by actually telling people about them? It’s true:

A great, content-driven design doesn’t have to put text above the fold. Note how Apple leads your eye down the page, then shows key features of their top-end laptop:

Click any sub-navigation, such as "design", and you find even more text-intensive layouts:

Apple has mastered the art of progressive content: As you dig deeper, they assume you want more information, so they provide increasingly dense content on deeper layers of the site. It makes sense: If you take the time to click further into the site, you’re looking for details. So Apple delivers them.

Postbox puts their call to action front-and-center. They also take advantage of text-shadow and other emerging CSS properties to get some great text effects, while ensuring the site will degrade gracefully for people with older browsers:

You learn all of the high-level benefits of their product on the home page, then click to internal pages when you are ready for details.

Even fashion companies get into the text-friendly act. Rapha features lots of products on their home page, as well as blog post summaries:

And their internal pages are ultra-informative. They have a short description and "buy now" block at the top right. Readers who want more information – including cycling nerds like me – can scroll down to dig deeper:

This site looks great because of text, not in spite of it.

Some brands do just fine with image-focused, text-repellent designs. Some demand it. I’m not suggesting that every web site has to be text-friendly. But if:

You’re already struggling for organic search traffic;You’re have PPC quality score problems;Your customer service line is ringing off the hook with the same questions, again and again;You need to explain your product and let visitors get more details when they want them;You want ultra fast-loading, attractive pages; orYou have a great copywriting team, and think your writing is an asset.

…then looking at the sites listed here should show you the way.

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2010 Trends to Ignore: How I did (not great)

Well, 2010 was interesting.

On the down side: Kidney stones and the ER; a wasp attack; head explosions.

On the up side: A fantastic year for my family; a great year for my company; a terrific team that's kicking butt.

But how'd I do with my predictions for 2010? Let's see:

Bing versus Google. I predicted Bing would flop. Eh - Bing now has 12% of the market. Not exactly beating Google's door down, but at least they didn't end up relaunching under a new name like, I dunno, Live. 75% for me.
Yahoo!. I said Yahoo! was done for. And what do you know - they're done for. 100% for me!
Mobile advertising. I said people would ask 'is it making money' and then stop using it. People, apparently, don't care if it's making money. So they kept spending money on mobile. 10% for me.
Web 3.0 The term didn't die, but at least it didn't take off. 65%.
Apple vs. Microsoft. I said it'd be Apple vs. Google in 2010, not Apple vs. Microsoft. Worth a B: 85%.
Boutique content sites. All bad for the boutique sites. Content sweatshops like eHow are winning. Which sucks. But worth an A-. I said they'd win. 90%
Corporate social media policies. I'd had high hopes that one big traditional company. One. Just. One. would get their head out of their tuchus and embrace social media. 'Embrace' means 'approach with affection', not 'approach like it has an STD'. Alas. F+ for Ian. 30%
Augmented reality. Failed. Utterly. 100% for me..
Google real time search. My exact quote from a year ago: "Eventually, we'll all realize that a real-time stream of poo is still poo". Eventually hasn't happened. The hype continues. 30% for me.
Green marketing. Should've died. Keeps going strong. Sigh. 0% for me.
"Don't be evil". Hm. Haven't heard that quote from the Googlers in a while. I said it'd starved to death for want of attention. Google frapped their rankings and is well on their way to becoming a data dictatorship. But I'll still keep buying Adwords. 100% right, but -20% for being a hypocrite.

Yikes. 60% for the year. I passed.

My prediction for 2011? I will not be making any predictions.

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Will Your Blog Be Big? Or Great?

This guest post is by Marjorie Clayman of Clayman Advertising.

Recently, it was announced that Richard Thompson was going to be awarded the OBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Your response, in any order, might be, “Who cares?” and “Who is Richard Thompson?”

Richard Thompson has a career in music that spans 40 years. He is a brilliant lyricist, but even more, he may be one of the best living guitarists out there. He was a member of folk rock super group Fairport Convention and he partnered with his ex-wife Linda in the 70s to make some fantastic albums. He wasn’t much of a vocalist back then, but now, even his vocal stylings are outstanding. And yet, Thompson plays small theatres and “intimate” concerts, and has a hard time enticing record labels to keep him on.

Richard Thompson is great, but he is not big.

Over the years, at any moment, Richard Thompson probably could have chucked his own particular style and his own particular skills out the window. He could have promised himself and his fans that it was for just one album, so that he could get his name out there. Then he’d come back to being himself.

So it is with blogging. You bring your own particular voice to your blog. You bring your own unique experiences and skills to your readers. But at any moment, you could say that honing your skills is not nearly as important as getting a lot of traffic. It’s so easy to think that aiming for “big” may be better than aiming for “great.”

Let’s face it—it’s probably easier to achieve “big” in comparison to becoming great in this competitive space. Write a few posts attacking big names, offer link bait, be controversial—you’ve seen all of those tricks in action. But are those bloggers great? Will you remember them in 40 years?

If you want to aim for greatness instead of trying to be big, here are some tactics you could try.

Look at how you can improve. Richard Thompson probably realized that his vocal work needed improvement. Instead of resting on his laurels, he worked hard, and it paid off. Look at your posts from the last month. What would you do to improve each post just a little bit?Blog outside your comfort zone. Stretch your limits. Attack new areas that will enrich your experience and that of your readers.Look at the content of the comments you receive, not the number. Are people saying that you helped them out or helped them see things in a new perspective, or are they just saying, “nice post”?Track your subscribers. Although this can be a metric for size as well, subscribing is an action people take when they are confident every post you write will be of interest to them (though they won’t read every single one). Are people placing that much confidence in you?Become a cult classic. While Richard Thompson may not be “big,” his followers are about as loyal as they come. Look at your readers. Do you have people who are not just reading your posts but gushing about them to their followers and their community?

This is not to say that everyone has to be like Richard Thompson, toiling away in the genius room while only the Queen of England cares. But becoming “big” is often a function of elements that are out of your control.

If folk rock had really become popular, Richard Thompson might well have become king of the world. The Beatles became as big as they did in part because they caught a new sound just as it was growing.

But aiming for great? That’s entirely under your control. It is defined by you, it is measured by you, and it is something you do from the heart. It’s important to remember that greatness can help pave the way for getting big. Getting big does not promise greatness.

Have you been concentrating on getting big lately or have you been working on honing your craft? Which do you value more? I’d love to discuss it with you in the comments section.

Marjorie Clayman is Director of Client Development at Clayman Advertising, a full service marketing communications firm located in Akron, OH.

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