Effective writing for the web

5 sep 2006

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Producing legible online content is a discipline in itself. Not only the text is important. The context has to be considered as well: page structure, related pages and links. Moreover, the internet offers various possibilities for enriching your content. Some basics to create effective content.

Findings from research

In its advisory work Jungle Rating executes a lot of content tests and user tests for corporate websites. Besides style issues, structure appears to be the greatest problems for online readers.
- Readers of online texts scan texts and do not read a page from top to bottom
- Screen reading takes more effort
- Readers are sensitive to visual elements: headers, enumeration and visuals.

However, these have to be relevant, otherwise they will be ignored.
- More and more readers develop a sense of convention. This means they have an

expectation where to find what information.

"Eyetrack III research", 2004, The Poynter Institute & Eyetools INC
One of the main findings of this eye tracking research: the reader of this texts gets caught by the header, lead and the picture in the text box at the right hand side.

Source:
"Eyetrack III research", 2004, The Poynter Institute & Eyetools INC

Influence your reader

Try to influence eye tracking: arrange your information in a smart way. Use bulleted lists, headers and sub headers. Put related info in a box: in this way you can distinguish this content from the rest. The more likely that this information will be spotted!

Help your reader

Help your reader finding his way: make sure that you know on which pages the content will be published before you start writing or editing. You have to think about structuring your information- especially when you arrange it on different pages. If your reader is on another page he does not always remember the exact context. Keep in mind he probably just scanned though the text. Beware of references like: earlier, above.

Attract your reader

Restrict yourself to the basics, do not get temped to offer all possible details. This is not where the average internet user is looking for. Be cautious with links as well. They can be very useful, but will distract your reader. If you are not aiming to offer a next Wikipedia site, do not exaggerate with links.
Enrich your text. Make use of the possibilities of the internet, use multimedia for supporting important messages. Do this in a functional way: otherwise a reader will get lost and will not get your message at all. Let for example your CEO express the highlights of your company's results in a short video message. Consider using Rich Internet Application (RIA). This functionality is very valuable for presenting large amounts information at a glance, for example organisation charts or your company's history. See Jungle Rating's newsletter of on this topic.

Keep your reader

Use the appropriate tone of voice: especially analysts and journalists do not appreciate marketese language at all.
A very simple, but still necessary advice: Keep your texts short. Otherwise you will loose a reader. This goes for your sentences as well! Do not make paragraphs longer than 5 sentences. The appropriate length depends on:
- the type of website: informing or attracting?
Information websites allow more content than lead generators.
- Target group: if your reader really needs your information he tends to read
more closely than a 'shopper'. Professionals who speak the language of
your business can handle more complex texts than inexperienced visitors.
- Depth in navigation structure: the deeper in the site, the more
information you can provide. You've already attracted your reader's
attention.