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QuickTips: How to write website content that PRODUCES RESULTS

by Matt J. Whetham, August 2009

Many websites suffer great loss of potentiality because of the way that the website content is developed.  Here are three of the most important factors that are necessary to understand when creating your website content:

1. Website viewers don’t read, they scan.

It is imperative to know that with most web pages, viewers will not read the page, but rather they will scan through it for the information that they are looking for.  This means that your content has to be kept concise and vital information should be easily distinguished.  To do this, one should

• Break up content into sections
• Employ bulleted lists (or numbered lists)
• Use visual representations of data such as graphs and charts
• Create “anchor” menus at the top of pages that span greater than three full-screen page scrolls

Note: about anchor menus
Ideally, a website should not run on longer than three full page scrolls; however, if your page does, then using anchor menus will help your reader quickly see what information your page contains, as well as quickly navigate to the information that they need.  An anchor menu is a menu of links at the top of the page. When one of the link items is clicked, the page automatically scrolls down to the section of the page with which the link is associated.

2. Website navigation is CRUCIAL!

One of the greatest annoyances that can be found in websites that are not professionally developed is a sporadically designed navigation menu.  Users will not stay on your website if they cannot move from page-to-page in a logical manner.  If you have a small website (up to 8 pages), almost all of your pages should be accessible from the navigational menu with one click.  If you have a site that is larger than this, your navigational menu should be broken up into sections, so that users can

1. arrive at your website,
2. choose the section for which they are visiting, and
3. navigate within that section to the individual pages that they require.

It is imperative that your navigational menu be displayed on every page of your site; a user should never have to rely on the browser’s “Back” button for navigation.  If your site is broken up into sections, then once a user has selected a section to view, a sub-navigation should then be available to them, in which they can then navigate from within that section.

Drop-down and drop-out menus (i.e. www.whethamsolutions.com) are very effective in arranging a website’s navigational structure.  This is because it not only allows for the simple navigational effect – that is, breaking up the entire website into small sections – but then once a user has selected a section, as they hover their mouse over the section, the subsequent web pages within that section are displayed to the user to choose from.  This allows one click from the homepage to almost all of the pages within your entire site, yet still presents your website as clean and organized.

3. A picture is worth a thousand seconds...

One doesn’t need to refer to research studies to understand that humans process pictures much faster than they process words.  It is said that 1000 words describe a photograph – therefore, the picture you use on a website can communicate your message much faster, and therefore bring more satisfaction to your viewer.  This will ultimately lead your viewer to:

• understand your content more clearly
• stay on your site longer

It is important to recognize that you are working with a time constraint with website viewers.  Statistics show that they do not want to stay on one particular web page for longer than a few seconds.  Because you are working with such a time constraint, it is crucial to employ as many images in the communication of your message as possible.

QUESTIONS? 

Feel free to contact Whetham Solutions at (705) 812-6288 for more information!