"WEBMARKETING
TIPS"
People Are In A
Hurry, So Write To Be Scanned
For many reasons --
physical, technological, financial, and even
psychological -- it's extremely important that
the text of web pages can be easily scanned. And
people on the Internet are scanning text
regardless. This has been proved again and
again, so let's not fight it. Let's just write
to be scanned.
How can you make
your text easy to scan? Actually, this article
is a good model. See how your eye leaps to the
heading below.
Use Many Headings
Use headings -- and
lots of them. Why so many? Headings and
subheadings are like signposts in the
wilderness. They create context when a web user
is lost in your site. The user should always be
able to see at least one heading on the screen.
Headings and
subheadings create a sense of continuity within
the web page. They prepare the user for what
you're about to say. Like newspaper headlines,
they are summaries of what is to come.
Use Specific
Headings
Why should headings
be specific? If a heading is generic or vague,
it isn't worth the space it occupies. For
example, the heading above could have been
vaguely and generically "Headings."
When scanning the
page a person would have no idea whether
headings were a good thing or a bad thing, or
what sort of heading was best. Instead, the
heading is a pithy summary of the section that
follows. Here are some bad and good examples:
General headings
(bad!)
- Introduction
- Our Products
- History
Specific headings
(good!)
- Window Cleaning
for Beginners
- Gourmet Pizza
Delivery Since 1969
- Norfolk Island
Fire service -- a Colorful History
- Are Paper Books
Obsolete?
Think keywords!
When you tag headings in your source code (as
<H1>, <H2> or <H3>, which many search engines
use to index your site), they are an influential
location for your keywords -- especially at the
top of a web page. The generic "Introduction,"
"Our Company" and "History" are hopelessly vague
as keywords, which is another reason for writing
headings that are specific.
Use Explanatory
Headings
People will scan
your headings in order to grasp the essential
meaning of your page. Therefore the headings
should summarize or explain what's in the next
paragraph or two. A question is fine as a
heading. In fact, the right question can work
wonders.
Don't try and be too
clever in your headings. The enigmatic,
provocative, cryptic, poetic, ironic or witty
heading is totally wasted on the web (except in
banners, maybe). Worse -- it's
counterproductive. The web is no place to
torture people.
Write Links That
Work Like Headings
As we've seen, some
people scan pages by jumping from one link to
another. It's worth checking each of your web
pages by scanning them in exactly this way. What
general message do the hyperlinks convey, when
you read them in sequence? Do they create some
sense of what this page is about? Or do they
create nonsense?
Linkwords look a bit
like headings -- so treat them like headings.
This way, you capitalize on your audience's
intuitive response to highlighted words, and
link-scanners can get a true sense of the
following page's main thrust.
Linkwords can make a
page dazzle. Detaching hyperlinks from their
paragraphs (in other words, listing them
separately) can help. When you list your
linkwords separately, it's easier to write them
in a way that makes sense when scanned.
Adapting Articles
For Easy Scanning
Often you need to
publish articles or other papers on the web,
articles written by somebody else or sanctioned
by law. Commonly, such material is copyrighted
and you're not permitted to edit it (apart from
proofreading). An article may have a vague title
that is useless on the web. You can't change the
title, and you may not even have the right to
insert a few headings.
In these cases, you
can still help people to scan it by inserting a
keyword-rich summary at the top. You can
sometimes sneak in some additional paragraph
breaks. These are a mercy for your readers,
especially with heavy academic material.
Look for significant
phrases, one every two or three paragraphs --
phrases that define a paragraph's topic.
Highlight significant phrases in bold or another
strong color. If these phrases are critical to
the meaning of the article, and scattered
throughout the text, people can scan effectively
by reading just the highlighted phrases. (Just
don't underline these phrases, of course, or
people will assume they are hyperlinks.)
Use Bullet Points
Bullets are born to
be scanned. They're a godsend for web users.
Keep the items on each list short and snappy.
And be sure every item on the list follows the
stem to make perfect sense.
The ideal length for
a bulleted list is 3-5 items. Never have a
continuous list going on for more than six or
seven items. This destroys the whole point of
bullets, because if a list goes on too long,
people forget how it began. On the screen, they
mightn't even be able to see the stem.
How can you fix a
list that's too long? Sometimes you can combine
several items into one. Sometimes you can break
a long list into several short lists, grouping
the items in a logical way.
Use The Inverted
Pyramid Structure
Start every web page
with a brief description or summary of the
page's content. You should do this for two
reasons. First, it helps you in your quest for
high search engine ranking. Secondly, it makes
the web page much easier to scan.
This system is
usually called the "inverted pyramid." It's the
accepted way to organize information on paper
for maximum comprehension, and similarly it's
essential on the web.
Picture an
upside-down triangle: Put the big idea or broad
picture first in the web page, and put the
smallest or least important points at the bottom
of the web page.
Write In Chunks
With a web page,
take the inverted pyramid to extremes. For
example, think of your paragraphs as chunks --
small chunks of information that make sense even
when isolated.
On the Internet,
people can see only one screen at a time. That
might include only two or three paragraphs. So
structure every paragraph rigidly -- far more
rigidly than you would when writing a paper
document. Make every paragraph a self-contained
inverted pyramid, with a single idea. And put
the main point first -- religiously,
consistently, every time. (Well, nearly every
time.)
Traditionally,
people scan English language documents by
reading the first few words of each paragraph.
For this reason, put only one idea in each
paragraph. And don't use a whole sentence to
lead into the point of the paragraph. Never
tease people and force them to guess your point.
They'll only click away.
Vary the length of
paragraphs, but keep them short. As a rule of
thumb, limit yourself to a maximum of 65 words.
As a model, consider the traditional FAQ (or
frequently asked questions) page: This has a
highly scannable format. A short question,
perhaps in bold, is immediately followed by the
answer. Each question and answer is a short,
self-contained chunk.
Take a good look at
this article. It's a good model of how to write
for easy scanning.
SK Kor
Internet Marketing Consultant
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