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Writing Web-Friendly Content by Josh Geller
The Importance of Accessible Content on the Web
On today's internet, content is king. Accessible content will entice visitors to visit and spend time on your web site, increasing the chances of a purchase or sponsor visit. Additionally, every major search engine is capable of scanning your web site's content and determining just how unique and relevant it truly is. Based on their findings, search engines will reward better content with higher rankings in their search results. For these reasons, it is absolutely essential that you spend time and effort crafting valuable content for your web site if you'd like to hold the attention of the traffic you receive.
Note: These guidelines are backed by numerous web accessibility studies that were performed to determine exactly how users interact with internet content! See the last section for details.
Tips for Writing Effective Web Content
Follow these simple, proven tips to improve the readability of your content.
Avoid jargon. Many times, terms that may be familiar to you as a professional will not be easily understood by an inexperienced reader. Make it as easy as possible for users to find the information they need. If you'd like to include a jargon term, you can put it in parenthesis. Sometimes a dictionary or glossary can help users understand jargon, but including these features is not an excuse to overuse jargon in your content. If your content includes abbreviations or acronyms, make sure that they can be easily understood by the common user.
Use familiar words and phrases. If your typical reader recognizes certain words or phrases that are commonly seen or heard, make sure to use them in your content. These types of phrases are what readers look for, and what they will commonly use as keywords in their web searches. You can collect relevant words and phrases by performing open-ended surveys and by reviewing common search terms associated with your site and related sites.
Use proper case. Case refers to uppercase and lowercase letter usage in your content. It may seem obvious, but many people tend to avoid conventional capitalization when they are trying to make an important point. As a general rule, always use capital letters to start sentences and to identify proper nouns or acronyms. If you want to get a reader's attention, use bold, italics, or underline styles - not excessive capitalization.
Limit the number of words and sentences. The attention span of the typical internet user is much shorter than you would expect. To make sure the reader gets all the way through your content, reduce the number of words per sentence and the number of sentences per paragraph. As a general rule, sentences should contain no more than 20 words and paragraphs no more than six sentences.
Use descriptive topic sentences. The first sentence of every paragraph should briefly introduce that paragraph's theme, including the scope of what will be covered. This is very important as users tend to scan the first sentence of each paragraph when looking for specific information. Using descriptive topic sentences will allow you to better organize your content and make it more accessible to the user.
Sources
All of these guidelines are backed by studies which observed the behavior of users who were interacting with and reading web content. Here is a list of the studies this information is supported by:
Morkes and Nielson: 1997Spyridakis: 2000Bailey, Noyani, and Hall: 2000Ahlstrom and Longo: 2001Tullis: 2001Koyani and Lafond: 2001Lynch and Horton: 2002Nielsen and Tahir: 2002
About the Author
Josh Geller is a freelance copywriter from New York (http://www.brainstormcopywriting.com). Visit Brainstorm Copywriting (http://www.brainstormcopywriting.com/services.html) to see what a professional business writer can do for your company.
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