Designed by Krista
Web Design

Part 2 of 4: In the first article, I covered how to find a place for your pages (web-hosting) and get them set up. Now, let’s talk about the “content” – anything you publish on your site is called “content”, including images, videos, text, etc. So, what should you put on your website and how?

Key Points: Keep it short. Keep it real.

1. How to create a free website
2. Adding content to your website
3. Making your website user-friendly
4. What is a search engine?

Three Tips for Quality Web Content

In the 90’s the catchphrase for websites was “Content is King” and this is still true today. If you want good search engine rankings, and to have people bookmark your website and email links to their friends, all you have to do is have things on your site which people want to read.

1. Hit the Basics: Some things are becoming standard on all websites, so make sure you have these: contact us, about us and a description of what you do. Other things that don’t apply to all sites, but you must include if they apply are map/directions, hours, catalog, etc.
2. Answer Questions: If you have been in business for a while, think back on the types of questions people ask you, and then make sure you include the answers to those questions on your site.
3. Check Out the Competition: Search for sites like yours on the internet, and see what types of information they include on their site. You can’t copy and paste their text, but you can use their ideas as inspiration.

Organizing Your Web Pages

It is critical that you organize your website content in a way that makes sense to your audience, and it doesn’t matter too much if it makes sense to you. After all, you created the site – you know how to find things.

“Card-sorting” is an easy exercise to help you organize your content logically. First, write a short description of each type of content on it’s own sticky note or 3″ x 5″ card. (Examples: map, photos of products, contact info, about us, privacy policy, product descriptions, return policy, directions, etc.) Don’t limit yourself – keep writing down ideas about content until you have every little bit on its own card.

Now, shuffle the cards a bit, which will help to make sure that you don’t use the order in which they occurred to you by default. Next, take each card, one at a time and put them in piles based on which ones seem to logically go together. If you have the examples above, you might put map, contact info, and directions in one pile. When you’ve gone through all of the cards, you will have several piles.

Finally, consider each of your piles. Come up with a short, one word name for each pile. Those names can be the title of the web page for that set of information, and also the names of the links on your navigation menu for your site. Try to keep the total number of piles between 5 and 8, because it is hard for people to process a navigation menu that has too many things on it. If you have more than 8 piles, review them and see if any can be combined.

Writing for Your Website

You are now ready to start writing your web pages, and this is where a lot of people make mistakes. It is natural for you to put on a “corporate” or “marketing” type voice, because you want to impress your audience, right? However, this will truly destroy your chances of winning people over to your business or your cause.

Today’s internet user wants to hear a “human” voice, meaning that you should write as authentically as possible. Don’t be afraid to show your personality, and even use a little humor. Use clean humor, correct spelling and grammar, and plain language to avoid offending or confusing your readers. One way to break the habit of overly-formal web content is to write the text in an email message to a friend – you will likely be more casual and open in that format, and then you can copy that to your web page.

Next, keep your text as short as possible to cover your topic. Once you have written it, re-read it and ask yourself if any words or sentences can be removed. People today are busy, and don’t have time to read a lot of text. Furthermore, it is a strain on your eyes to read on a computer monitor or mobile device. Make use of paragraph headings, highlighting for key terms, and bulleted lists, which help users scan the text for the part which is most important to them.

12.12.2008 | feed | comment | trackback |
tags: articles, writing | categories: Web Design