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General Discussion

Clients who don't give you a lot of content?

Hi, I am doing a few sites for people and they are new businesses and none of them really give me a lot of content.

For example, I ask them to give me content for an 'About us' page and they only give me 1-2 sentances.

It's really hard to work with that little content as the page just ends up feeling extremely plain. I have gave clients suggestions on what they can write about, but it's still very very short.

Same with pictures too, rarely any of them have any photos. Often they suggested to use stock images that gets used over and over again on the world wide web.

Any tips on this?

Thanks, Robert

3 Answers

build it than show it to them. It's there webpage if they want more content then have them provide you additional copy at that time.

Hi Robert,

I know what you mean. I think it is an art itself to get the content right with the client. But perhaps the problem stems from the fact that they, naturally, don't appreciate what is required and effective in the same way you do. And it can be a challenge to illustrate this to them.

Instead of asking them to write an 'About us' page, why not ask them more direct questions, which they cannot fail to answer. Such as, 'When were you established?', 'How big is your company?', 'What are your main objectives?', and so on. Then you should know enough about them to write it yourself and work it into the design as you see fit. I think it can sometimes be better to have control of the written content as it reduces the chance of having to include writing that is not to your liking...

All the best, Ede

Great advice :)

With regard to content @Ede Harrison answered that part brilliantly. For images you could maybe signup to https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/ it costs $10 a month and you recieve 10 credits which can be used for each photo. The credits also rollover if you don't use them all each month. They have quite a vast amount to choose from and you can also use comps to see what they will look (albeit pixelated) before you use your precious credits to buy one.

I've used them on most of my designs on my Dribbble profile https://dribbble.com/mshanda

Thanks for the link Marcus, I've not seen this site before. It seems a good budget option for images.

Awesome :) Thanks!