It is a common mistake by site owners to take the copy from their brochure and cut and paste it into their web site.

Not only is this a mistake because you want to give your users something more on your site than just what they can get from your brochure, the copy used on your brochure is entirely inappropriate for feature on the web.

This is because the way people read online is very different to the way they read print.

In fact, users quite simply DON’T read online, they SCAN.

Users, when they arrive at a page, look for a headline, summary, and key words or phrases that are related to their area of interest. They jump on these and scan read across a few words, until they lose interest. Then, they jump down to the next paragraph.

They then read a few words on this paragraph, before jumping down, either to the next paragraph or further down the page. This continues until they lose interest and go elsewhere.

In order to increase the effectiveness and ’staying time’ on your pages, consider the following guidelines when writing for your web site.

I had the misfortune of finding myself on the Bombay Sapphire Gin site the other day. If you go there, be prepared for a frustrating visit.

Like far too many sites on the web, Bombay Sapphire employ the single most annoying navigation gimmick on the web - ‘School Dinner navigation’.

School Dinner navigation is not only the bane of good, usable design, but also the best named usability mishap. Quite simply, you have to ’stick your fork in the item’ (roll your mouse over the item) in order to see what it is.

School dinner navigation is the epitome of arrogant site design, a belief that the user will want to spend endless precious seconds inspecting the navigation to find out where they need to go on the web site.

This sort of thing drives me nuts. “An Interactive Experience Like No Other” the site proudly boasts. Sadly not. Far too many sites use school dinner navigation to add that ‘edge of dynamism’ to proceedings. My advice? Don’t. Let your content add the dynamism and leave any mention of school dinners back in your childhood.

We have just launched Cobra Beer’s new web site. You can see it at http://www.cobrabeer.com.

It’s the first of a multi-phased online campaign which will involve some fantastic support for Above and Below the Line campaigns, and some pretty clever technology to really push the Cobra message out to the masses.

But for now, we’re focused on covering all the usual bases; product and company information, contact, news, subscriber news PLUS a pretty smart postcode lookup utilising Google Maps that allows you to find where the nearest pint of Cobra can be found in relation to a postcode.

Over the last few years, enotions has moved away from just nice looking sites and started to blend eyeball popping design with some really clever functionality to offer clients both beauty and value with their web sites.

Just wait till you see what’s coming with Cobra later this year. Exciting times for Cobra, and enotions too!