Text that won’t Make the Cut
Ever have that moment where your eyes goes fuzzy while you're skimming a web page. So much small text! We're all suffering from (neatly described by Monika Mundell) anyway, so its not surprise that lengthy web content can make your eyes roll back into your head.
We all want our websites to be user-friendly so here are some tips on how to tell what content on your site or blog important. We'll identify two types of information.
Must-Haves
- Answer the "What?" question. Either in your landing or about page, give people the quick and dirty of what your site is about.
- Reader's requests. Ask your readers, via email, twitter or even a blog posts what they want to read.
- Relevance. You know the goal of your site, put information relevant to it up. this includes news, trends, f.d.q.s (Frequently Debated Questions) and your own thoughts.
Superfluous
- Anything written for your ego.
- Long-winded content when something short but juicy will do.
- Out-dated content
With all writing on your website, both blog and site content take time to identify what things are “must haves” and what things would you “like to have”. The important things have to take priority. There are lots of things you'd like to write, or see on your site, but if its not something your readers say they “must” have, it will have to take a backseat or even be cut.
Keep it short. This goes for web content especially. What you can't fix on your site, take it to your blog. Short, frequent posts are much more effective than one long-winded post a month. This goes back to the point at the top, “must” vs. “like to”. Trim the fat off your site, just post what your readers really need to know.
We've talked about using your audience to gauge the effectiveness of your content, what other ways do you use to decide what to keep or cut?
Image by T
Tags: Audience, Content, Content Critical, cut, detail, must have, need to know, Scissors, superflous, writing
November 6th, 2008 at 5:31 am
[...] With all writing on your website, both blog and site content take time to identify what things are “must haves” and what things would you “like to have”. The important things have to take priority More [...]
November 6th, 2008 at 9:55 am
You are so right. Do you know if there’s ever been a survey that’s estimated lost business due to poor copy?
November 6th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Carolann,
I don’t know of one offhand but that’s a really interesting idea. I will make sure to check for one and if I find a link I will post it.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Carolann, Found a couple of really interesting links.
1.
This a really detailed book about Effective Writing. I may have to go buy it, it looks that cool.
2.
On the other hand, here is a paper about “bad writing in economics” and its got some interesting things to say in the abstract. Might be worth tracking down the paper.