This is an excerpt from my book Write to the Top: A How To for Website Content Writing and Increasing Website Traffic.
How many websites do you go to each day? Probably quite a few. There are your regular websites for news, weather, sports, as well as your favorite interests and hobbies. But there are also plenty of websites that you visit each day that are new and unknown to you. What kind of impression do they make?
If I’m looking for a cooking recipe, I’ll be much more inclined to stay on the page with easy-to-read text, bulleted points, and a nice picture of what I want to eat.
If I find a cooking recipe with all of the text the same size, no real heading, and everything in one long sentence stretching across the page, I’ll immediately close out that tab or window on my browser, or hit back like my life depended upon it.
Just take a look at how all of the above information looks when unformatted:
Writing a Website: Content Pages: Formatting
How many websites do you go to each day? Probably quite a few. There are your regular websites for news, weather, sports, your favorite interests and hobbies. But there are also plenty of websites that you visit each day that are new and unknown to you. What kind of impression do they make? Is the relevant information you’re looking for presented right at the top of the page? Or do you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find what you’re looking for? Do the headings and subheadings tell you everything you need to know? Or are you digging through the blocky paragraphs looking for what you seek? Most people that surf the internet regularly will come across many new sites each day, and they’ll determine how useful that site is to them in a matter of seconds. It’s not just what the content says, but how it’s presented. If I’m looking for a cooking recipe, I’ll be much more inclined to stay on the page with easy-to-read text, bulleted points, and a nice picture of what I want to eat. If I find a cooking recipe with all of the text the same size, no real heading, and everything in one long sentence stretching across the page, I’ll immediately close out that tab or window on my browser, or hit back like my life depended upon it.
If you saw that, what would you do? You’d hit back and wonder about the fool who put it up, that’s what you’d do! So don’t make the mistake that thousands of websites out there are doing, and use formatting for your website’s content pages. Please!
- Is the relevant information you’re looking for presented right at the top of the page? Or do you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find what you’re looking for?
- Do the headings and subheadings tell you everything you need to know? Or are you digging through the blocky paragraphs looking for what you seek?
- Most people that surf the internet regularly will come across many new sites each day, and they’ll determine how useful that site is to them in a matter of seconds. It’s not just what the content says, but how it’s presented.
If I’m looking for a cooking recipe, I’ll be much more inclined to stay on the page with easy-to-read text, bulleted points, and a nice picture of what I want to eat.
If I find a cooking recipe with all of the text the same size, no real heading, and everything in one long sentence stretching across the page, I’ll immediately close out that tab or window on my browser, or hit back like my life depended upon it.
Just take a look at how all of the above information looks when unformatted:
Writing a Website: Content Pages: Formatting
How many websites do you go to each day? Probably quite a few. There are your regular websites for news, weather, sports, your favorite interests and hobbies. But there are also plenty of websites that you visit each day that are new and unknown to you. What kind of impression do they make? Is the relevant information you’re looking for presented right at the top of the page? Or do you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find what you’re looking for? Do the headings and subheadings tell you everything you need to know? Or are you digging through the blocky paragraphs looking for what you seek? Most people that surf the internet regularly will come across many new sites each day, and they’ll determine how useful that site is to them in a matter of seconds. It’s not just what the content says, but how it’s presented. If I’m looking for a cooking recipe, I’ll be much more inclined to stay on the page with easy-to-read text, bulleted points, and a nice picture of what I want to eat. If I find a cooking recipe with all of the text the same size, no real heading, and everything in one long sentence stretching across the page, I’ll immediately close out that tab or window on my browser, or hit back like my life depended upon it.
If you saw that, what would you do? You’d hit back and wonder about the fool who put it up, that’s what you’d do! So don’t make the mistake that thousands of websites out there are doing, and use formatting for your website’s content pages. Please!
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