Chin wag

There's nothing the enotions lot like more than a good chat

Rob makes frequent updates to our blog, and when they get time away from projects, so do the rest of the team. We've (heavily) edited out the stuff about Rob's band and Seb's love life, so it should be palatable reading!

Posts Tagged ‘how to write content for web sites’

Writing for the web

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.

  • Use strong titles, supported by a summary that explains what the page is about.
  • Divide up the page in meaningful sub-headings so users can jump to a relevant section of interest with confidence.
  • Use bullets lists, to make content more accessible.
  • One point per paragraph so that users, who jump down a paragraph, will not miss any vital information.
  • Highlight your keywords and phrases, either by making them bold or by linking from those words to an associated page.
  • Write the conclusion of page first with accompanying, supportive content further down the page, so the user can find the answers quickly and, if they wish, read more to discover additional facts.
  • Think about halving the amount of copy you write. Users don’t want to read reams so don’t make them.

    • blog author  Rob  |  8 December 2008

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