Creating effective website content is tricky. How do you give your audience clear, concise content that’s easy to digest? And how do you ensure you’re getting the best ROI you can from your lovingly crafted web content?
I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. Here are five simple ways to make your web content more scannable, and ultimately bring you more business:
1. Highlight and emphasize the important bits.
You’ve got a lot of options for highlighting your most important text. Think about the key takeaways you want your audience to have, and make them stand out. You can make the text boldface, a different colour, or a larger font size. However, be careful not to make content look like it’s a hyperlink if it isn't one.
2. Add variety to your layout.
By adding some variety to your text layout, you can create contrasts that help your audience digest your content more efficiently. Info in a list is very scannable, so try including bullets with your paragraphs. You can also use a Q&A format, or indent certain bits of text. But keep in mind that too much variety becomes chaos, and your audience will likely become overwhelmed and jump ship.
3. Use headings and subheadings.
Give your audience a helping hand by giving them headings (and subheadings, if appropriate). These serve as stepping stones, allowing your audience to happily jump from one to the next.
Pro Tip: If you have a print document and you want to publish it online, the fastest way to make it “web ready” is to add subheads at the right places.
4. Keep your paragraphs concise.
Chances are, you’ve noticed this one yourself. You’re browsing online, click on a link, and BAM! You’re hit with huge swaths of content. It’s overwhelming, and it doesn’t make anyone want to read it. So business owners—keep your paragraphs short, and as concise as possible so you don’t lose your audience at their first glance.
5. Include plenty of white space.
Between those short-and-sweet paragraphs, give your audience plenty of white space. More white space increases the readability of a piece of text. This is especially important online, where reading is taxing on the eyeballs as it is.
I hope these tips help you and your business. I wish you great success with your amazing web content!
