The Importance of Copywriting in Web Design

As designers, we rightfully spend our time focused on aesthetics. We are pixel pushers who firmly believe with the strongest conviction that attractive websites are fundamentally better websites.

We build our mockups with “lorem ipsum” so we can go back and write something better when we have the time. Deadlines approach and still we put off the text until the last possible second. Finally, as our various GTD apps inform us that the time has come to submit the artwork, we hash out some quick text to throw onto our beautiful creations and send them off, without a visual blemish yet still marred by the subpar copy that appears on every page.

For many of us, this is simply how we’re programmed. We’re visual beasts that thrive on good design. The problem of course is that the neglect of solid copy will often cause the finished product to suffer as much or more than a poor design. Unless designers are your target market, your user base will be populated largely by individuals that don’t speak design. Show them Dribbble.com and they’ll wonder aloud why anyone would ever create such a service.

Sure, they can often interpret what is ugly and what isn’t similarly to how we can, but only on an intuitive level. What they really notice is how the website feels. Whether it’s smooth or clunky, easy to navigate or impossible. This is what is meant when designers say that great design is transparent. If your users notice your interface too much, it’s probably because they hate it.

This same metaphor of transparency applies to copywriting on the web. It’s worth noting that the average user is in fact trained in reading and writing far more than design, though still only as much as a standard education supplies. To these users, we’ll call them “normal people” as opposed to we visual freaks, browsing the web is a reading experience. Evaluating a service involves skimming the sales pitch and reading the list of features as much or more than evaluating the visual layout of the elements on the page. They’ll even hire a designer based as much on what he says about himself as what appears in his portfolio. If you have strong copy, they won’t notice or evaluate it too much, they’ll be far too busy being convinced of what it’s saying.

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