In internet marketing theory there is an often quoted axiom which claims that the average internet user has a very limited attention span. A so-called ‘digital goldfish’, he jumps from link to link, scanning images, watching videos, and possibly reading a headline or two.

According to a recent report, as of 2009 there were an estimated 234 million websites and 126 million blogs that make up the web. As web users we know that the web is vast and often finding the content you want can be a difficult task. We have developed a tendency to ‘scan’ over websites, making a near instantaneous decision as to whether a page contains the content we are after. And if it doesn’t, another page is only a click away.

The visual design of a site plays a large part in capturing a viewer’s attention, however it is the content which will keep them interested and hold them on your site. With this in mind we can follow some simple techniques to maximise the effectiveness of our content.

Logical sections and focus points

The most important part of ensuring your content is effective comes in the planning, before you have even written a single word of content. To start with you need to sort out what information you want to get across and how you are going to categorise or group it.

We do this intuitively when planning what pages we are going to have on our site. For example if we have a basic site with the pages Home, About Us and Our Services, as a user, we can guess from these headings what each page will contain. If these categories are likely to contain large amounts of information it often makes sense to break them down into manageable chunks. We could further categorise the above example as:

• Home
• About Us
  • History
  • Our People
  • Associates
• Our Services
  • Web Design
  • Web Development
  • Web Hosting

Depending on how much information we have for each of these sub categories we could decide to have them as separate pages, or just list the information under separate headings on the same page. Either way, our goal is to create a focus point that a user will notice when scanning a page, and be drawn into if that is the content they are looking for.

Target your readers.

So we’ve decided how to group our information to make it easy to find. Now before we start writing we must decide who we are writing for. Defining your target audience is imperative for deciding the content that will be relevant and the language you will use to connect with your readers. If your intended readers are a specialised group with a particular knowledge, for example Web Developers, then your content can be focussed towards them with an assumption that they will understand the language you are using and the concepts you are talking about. However if you are a Web Developer and the intended audience of your web site is your clients and potential clients then getting too technical in your content is more likely to scare your audience away rather than keep them coming back.

Keep it Simple

So now it’s time to get writing and the golden rule is keep it simple. By simple we do not necessarily mean basic or easy. What we mean is that Web content should only be as long or as complex as it must be, it should be relevant and it should be targeted. As web users ourselves we know that large blocks of text are difficult to scan, difficult to read on screen and generally should be avoided.

Keeping it simple means:

• Arranging your content logically and covering important content first.
• Breaking up blocks of text with lists, bullet points and headings.
• Keeping sentences short and paragraphs to four sentences or less.
• Being specific and to the point.

Keywords and Content Targeting

Another thing to keep in mind when writing content for your website is how search engines will read your content. When search engine ‘spider-bots’ crawl the web looking for websites one of the things they take into consideration is the content on a page and the words and phrases that make up that content. It can be a good idea to write a list of words that you would like web users to search for to find your site and be sure to include them in your content. Greater weight is given to the words in headings so make sure you include your most important keywords in headings and subheadings.

Similarly the text in a link is taken into account by search engines for the page that link is pointing to. So if you are pointing to a page on your own website it is better to write: information about twenty4 – melbourne web designers, rather than: For information about twenty4 Click Here.

Using Images

Images are another great way to enhance your content and break up chunks of text.Used effectively they can convey information more quickly than when using text and can often help to illustrate complex information. As with text it is important to select images that are relevant and add to the content rather than create a distraction.

Edit, Edit, Edit

As with all published content web content should be written, proof-read, re-written and checked again. If something you have written is not relevant cut it out or put it somewhere else. If it’s hard to understand, simplify it. And… an article about writing content wouldn’t be complete without stating – spelling mistakes and grammatical errors must be fixed.

Whether web users really are ‘digital goldfish’ with an inability to concentrate and a tendency to click from site to site is unlikely. What is certain though is that the internet is huge and while there’s lots of good stuff out there there’s also lots of junk. By necessity web users must be selective about who they devote their attention to and the key to receiving that attention starts with good content.

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Or read some more from the Client Information Series!

• Writing effective content for your site.
• The importance of relational tree diagrams in planning your website
• What is a content management system or CMS?
• Designing for different screen resolutions
• All about browsers (and why we hate Internet Explorer)
• What is Search Engine Optimisation or SEO and why is it important?
• An introduction to HTML and CSS snd other coding languages.
• How to take a screen capture.