Time for a Workout: Trim Down Your Copy

Have you ever skipped a paragraph because it just looked to large? If you're like most people, the sight of a huge block of text is repelling more than inviting—especially in the blazing-fast pace of online navigation.

If you're worried that your site is text heavy, then it probably is. Here is an exercise that can help you trim your text while keeping all the essentials intact.

1) Take the text of the entire page and reduce it it to one (or two if you have to) paragraphs. If it was easy to do, then you probably didn't need so much in the first place. If it was difficult, it was definitely worth it because you just took the power of the whole page of text and packed into a single paragraph.

2) Here's the really hard part: reduce that entire paragraph into one sentence. This can be a painful process, forcing you to eliminate all but the most basic information your visitors should know.

3) Finished? You have just created the most important sentence of your page, possibly your website. This newly crafted, streamlined sentence should be the first thing visitors read on that page or on your website.

4) Use your power-packed paragraph to describe your products/services/purpose in more detail. If you need to go into further detail, direct visitors to the bottom of the page or to another page where they know they will be reading larger amounts of text.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

What is Good Website Content?

Less copy (text) is not necessarily more effective than having a lot of copy. The quality of the copy, not the length of the copy, is what determines its effectiveness. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide says “Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here [including title tags, description meta tag, URLs, site navigation, anchor text, optimizing images, and links). Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it.”

What is good content? There are other factors that go into creating good content, but there are three that make a big difference. It must
• make sense to the reader.
• help sell your product or service.
• have keywords and key phrases that will bring customers to your site.

If you follow these three key principles, you’ll have the right amount of copy on your website.

We'll go deeper into website copy and how to make it the most effective tomorrow, so stay tuned.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Is Less Copy More Effective?

When you are creating copy(text) for your website, keep in mind that most users want information as quickly as possible. If you keep your copy trimmed down to only necessary information, visitors are more likely to stay on your site. Too much copy will look daunting to the visitor, who, in most cases, won’t stay on your site.

According to a 2006 study by Clicktale, only about 20% of visitors will scroll to the bottom of a webpage. If you need to have a longer page, try placing a picture at the bottom of the page so that only the top portion is showing. This will naturally entice the viewer to scroll down to see the lower half of the picture and will increase the chances of your text read. Try to keep your pages short enough to eliminate the need for scrolling.

There are times when long copy is more appropriate. Products or services that are complicated, technical, or pricey generally require more copy to effectively sell to visitors. If your products/services fall into one of these categories, don’t be afraid to use longer copy.

Join us tomorrow for more tips website copy.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.