Copy Before Code

A website is a communication medium, first and foremost. The message comes before the code.

When you design a website, you need to start from the copy. It’s the reason why anyone would visit your website in the first place.

The copy shapes the code, not the other way around.

I would even propose that copywriting comes before branding: if you want to come up with a business, begin with a blog to nail down your main ideas and value proposition.

Push content as if you wanted to build yourself a second brain. Make it a color palette, a logo, a name, a slogan, a mission statement, a manifesto.

Of course, copywriting is an iterative process: the cycle doesn’t end with code, copy only keeps getting refined over and over depending on the real-world feedback you receive.

We tend to underestimate the time it takes to write good copy. Some problems and solutions take days—if not years—of deliberate practice to be formulated in a clear and simple way. Copy without expertise is coarse and shallow.

For all these reasons, clear thinking backed by facts is key. Clear thinking then translates into clear writings that will help you get your point across and grow from the resulting interactions.