You have three seconds to make a good impression on someone who visits your website. When people surf the web, they decide almost instantly if a website offers what they are looking for or if they need to hit the Back button. You do it, I do it, we all do it.

The best way to design your website and write content is based on one essential truth– people don’t read websites word-for-word. Instead, they scan the page.

In fact, if you want to get scientific about it, people scan a page in an F-shaped pattern.

Because people scan your page, you need to adapt it accordingly. Don’t make visitors mad by trying to force your design or formatting preferences on them. Your goal is to appease them.

Solutions:

Use Scannable Test

• Break up long paragraphs. Forget what you learned in English class. When writing for the web, no paragraph should be more than roughly 4 sentences or lines.
• Include sub-headings to help visitors navigate down the page. Many people will start scrolling down the page immediately, looking for meaningful entry points to your content.
• Use bulleted and numbered lists when possible. If something you’re saying can be written in a format other than a paragraph, then go with it. This post is a good example.
• Highlight important words and sentences. Use bold, italics and underline if you want to emphasize something. Scanning eyes will be drawn to these words.
• Reduce the total number of words. If you can say something in five powerful words instead of 15, do it.
• Write using the inverted pyramid. This style comes from the journalism world and basically involves putting the most important and relevant information at the top of your content. Think about when you read a newspaper article (assuming you do). As toy read down an article, each sentence is less important than the one above.

Make it Clean and Simple

• Don’t use too many images, fonts or colors. You want to use visual elements, but don’t overload on this or it creates too much of a distraction.
• Use good navigation to help your visitors get around your site. You want visitors to find exactly what they want very quickly and obviously.
• Don’t make users think. Avoid being fancy with your words and just say what you mean.



Here’s an example of What Not To Do. Beyond Channels? Beyond Products? Beyond Distribution? What does that mean? What does this company actually do? Beats me.

If you want more detailed information on effective web design, check out Smashing Magazine’s 10 Principles article.

Related Posts

• Web Viewers Are Impatient…Format Content Accordingly
• Are Your Website Viewers Getting The Message?