client area
Search Engine Optimization
Five rules for creating effective website content:
Rule #1: Use headings to create visual hierarchy
What’s visual hierarchy?
Because people scan web content instead of reading it from beginning to end, it’s critical that your most important content catches their eye. “Visual hierarchy” is a fancy term that simply means visitors see the most important information first and the least important information last.
We have already designed some visual hierarchy into your website. For instance, we’ve probably made your logo the first thing people see, and your main menu the next thing. But visual hierarchy doesn’t stop there. You can make the text content of your site easier to scan by using headings.
How to build strong visual hierarchy? How do you go about creating strong visual hierarchy from a page of text?
Title your paragraphs
First, look at your text and ask yourself what the topic of each paragraph is. Then give each paragraph a heading that describes what the paragraph is about. Challenge yourself to use as few words as possible. If two paragraphs share a topic, they can fall under the same heading.
Break it down further
Then, look within each paragraph and think about ways you can break it down into further subdivisions. If it is a long paragraph, could it be broken into sub-paragraphs? If so, is there a heading that could go with each one?
Use size, color and indenting
When it comes to formatting headings, the convention is to use font size and color to make them stand out from the rest of the text. Page titles are the largest, followed by main headings and sub-headings. Also, sub paragraphs can be indented to set them off from the rest of your text. We will have set the formatting for main headings and sub-headings when we built your site. For the sake of consistency, it is important to use the styles we have created for you.
Use bold and italic text
Using bold text can go a long way in making your page easier to scan. Bolded text also helps search engines prioritize keyword relevancy on a page, or specific areas within a page. If a particular section of your text is important, bold the most important sentence or part of a sentence.
Italicized text also adds emphasis, but because it is less legible it should be used sparingly.
Rule #2: Omit needless words
This is E.B. White’s seventeenth rule in his Elements of Style. Extra words take up space and make text harder to scan.
Be ruthless. Sit down with your original text and challenge yourself to get rid of half the words without discarding information or meaning. It sounds challenging, but you’ll be surprised how doable it is.
Avoid the “small talk” in your web content. Instead of spending several sentences welcoming visitors and saying how great you are, cut straight to the chase and give them the information they’re after. Save the small talk for the telephone.
Rule #3: Add as much relevant content as you can
Keeping your writing tight and short (see above) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add lots of articles. The more relevant content you add to your site, and the more frequently you update it, the more valuable your site becomes and the better your search engine ranking.
So, add lots of articles. Make sure they’re relevant. And within each article, use as few words as possible to make your point.
Rule #4: Be smart with hyperlinks
The way you add hyperlinks to your website content affects not only the usability of your site, but also visitors’ ability to find your site using search engines.
The most important rule is to avoid descriptive text in your hyperlink, such as “click here.” These extra words add to the word count of your page and disrupt the flow of the text, making it harder to read.
Instead your links should explain what users will find at the other end of the link, and include some of the key information-carrying terms in the link text itself.
Example:
Rule #5: Don’t clutter your home page
A common mistake is to keep adding new items to your home page without removing older items. This approach eventually results in a cluttered home page that looks ugly and is difficult to navigate.
Think of your home page as a magazine cover. The purpose is to draw readers in using a few tantalizing teasers. Ever seen a magazine’s cover promote an article from a past issue or display the entire text of an article?
Keeping your home page fresh and clean by limiting it to a few teasers related to your most current information gives visitors the impression that your site—and the organization or business it represents—is dynamic and productive. If visitors are looking for an older piece of information, they can find it using your navigation or the site’s search engine.
Additional resources:
Krug, Steve (2006). Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition. New Riders Publishing. ISBN 0-321-34475-8
