Internet Marketing Podcast, Web Usability Blog - Intuitive Websites

Content Tips

February 8th, 2006 Tom

Content is the most important part of a Website and the most time consuming. Here are a few tips about content.

Website visitors love pictures with captions because they can scan and see visuals. Whenever possible tell your story, offer your products and services or just communicate online with pictures and captions.

Hire someone who is a Web content specialist. Don’t take their word for it, but look at how they actually write for the Web. If they write in brief sentences, using bullet items and few words that say a lot, then they can write for the Web. Most writers for the Web use 50% more words then needed.

Compare these two paragraphs, the first taken from an actual Website and the second edited for the Web by me:

“Unique resources at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital let researchers generate a “gold mine” of data to track evolution of bird flu virus genes and understand how they cooperate to cause disease.”

“St. Jude’s Hospital generates data on bird flu virus genes and how they cause disease.”

Don’t these two sentences say the same thing? Which is easier to read? This is content from the home page that is used to motivate users to click through to the actual article. The scannable content with fewer words will help generate more click-throughs.

Keep content brief and scannable.

Entry Filed under: Content