Make Your Mark    

Do you wonder why people aren’t reading all that great info you posted on your website? Maybe it’s too wordy and their brains turn off. There are times to be brief and times to elaborate.

Keep the Main Pages Short and Scannable

Website content should be easy to scan because people scan on the web, they don’t read word for word. Less is more.

Making your content scannable is most typically achieved with the use of lists, charts, and bold headings. It takes more time for the writer to format this way, but it means your reader will grasp it and respond to what you’re asking.

When To Say More

4 good reasons to be expansive on your website:

1. To give more details on subpages when the reader is ready.
   For instance, keep it brief on the entry pages to each section, but let readers click for more details, such as product reviews or film synopses.
2. To use a variety of terminology to be welcoming to multiple audiences.
   You might even have two different pages about one topic, but one group knows your technical jargon  and the other group does not.
3. To boost search engine presence.
   Search engines love content. But this is tricky. They can actually tell when you’re just stuffing words into a page, versus providing valuable details like product reviews.
4. To allow readers to post comments, reviews, photos, etc.
   This is one of the best and easiest ways to boost your content in a meaningful way. They will write things that you wouldn’t have thought of, but that appeal to other readers. For this and many other reasons, user-generated content is what is driving the web these days, and is the essence of “Web 2.0.”

Alright, I got a little wordy again. I don’t always take my own advice! But blogging is different from the average website, so that’s my excuse for today.

Tags: Web Content