We’re all busy, flooded with things to read! On the web, we just want the information we’re looking for, now! People don’t read on the web, they scan. So when writing for the web, make it easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for by using
- the inverted pyramid format
- lots of whitespace
- lists (with or without bullets)
- fewer, less complex words
Give your visitors the most important information in the first paragraph on each page. In journalism,
this is often called the “inverted pyramid format”, and it works well in today’s web. Instead, too often we force our
visitors to read a long column of text that establishes the groundwork for our conclusion. Your site is neither a high
school essay nor a joke (we hope!). So putting the punch line first is not going to ruin it. Rather, your intention is
to draw in your visitors so that they will be interested in reading the supporting information that follows.
Look at the topic from your visitors’ viewpoints. Why are they on your site? What are they looking for?
Instead of writing a solid block of text, break it into “chunks” that are more easily scanned. Use whitespace freely,
and create lists where appropriate.
Take your first draft and cut out half of it – yes, 50% of the words must go. Make sure the words that
remain contain your keywords, but remember that your visitors are looking for content, not poetry. Using $5.00 words when a
50-cent word will do won’t impress your visitors with your education because they will have long since clicked away to some other website.
In a study published earlier this year, researchers found that your visitors are probably reading
less than you think. On a page containing 111 words or less, the average visitor reads only 50% of the information.
The more words on the page, the less the visitor reads. (Source: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, May 6, 2008.)
Make it easy for your visitors to find what they are seeking, and you have a much better chance
that your website will reach its goal – of selling your products or services, of establishing your business credibility,
of supporting your existing customer base – or whatever goal you have set for it.
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