Whipping Content into Gold Medal Shape

Good content and good copy draws readers. It attracts repeat visits and grows loyalty. As Web Professionals, we're sometimes so busy Photoshopping the images, wrestling with the CSS, designing the database and scripting the server - that we forget what the audience comes for, and what will bring them back. Content Maven Meryl Evans has written this free article for DMXzone members with a few pointers on turning your purple prose into gold medal content.

Content isn't just for online magazines and newspapers. E-commerce sites have content. How else would you get attracted to products that aren't in your mind when you surf to an e-store? How about communicating with family, friends, and co-workers via e-mail? How about reading product reviews? Oh, not to forget, there's that temptress of a product description that tries luring you into buying.

The famous online garage sale and flea market, eBay, couldn't succeed without content. Sellers write attention-grabbing titles for their wares to draw in people. Once the prospects enter, sellers hit the potential buyers with a sales pitch, or product details, describing its beauty. Stories have circulated about talented sellers who write funny descriptions, and they're successful in selling.

Those providing little information and no accompanying product photo leave too much to mystery and distrust, losing the chance to earn higher bids. One clever person proves the value of photos and the importance of listing product specifics. He bids on items without a photo and turns around to sell said item with a photo. Apparently, he's doing well enough to make it a full-time job.

Emphasize Hyper in Hypertext

Though readers crave online content, they approach online content differently than reading paper. The Stanford-Poynter study (http://www.poynter.org/eyetrack2000/) indicates nearly 80% of the readers read article summaries rather than complete articles. When viewing complete articles, readers only read 75% of the text. Also, in online reading our eyes naturally go to the center of the screen instead of top to bottom, and left to right when reading print.

When converting an article from paper to screen, try trimming it 50 percent and omitting words such as really and very and facts that don't support the argument. This tip helps bring out the important details in an article and shortening it for online reading. Continue cutting the article in half until you have a one to two line sentence that could be useful as the summary or synopsis.

Cut the Fat

Short words and short sentences make an unhappy college professor. If you're writing for professors, then you may have to throw this tip out the window. However, it's easier to catch and remember things with scanning eyes when using short words and short sentences. The infamous KISS (Keep it simple, stupid  not you, of course) rule applies on the Web more than anywhere else. Use words that say what you mean and can be understood with little thought. PhD words are better left to college papers.

Readers scanning and rarely reading word-for -word justify the need for shorter paragraphs. The general recommendation is to keep the paragraphs at two or three lines, three to five sentences, or one idea. Emails or content without paragraph breaks are difficult to read because it's easy to lose your place and not be able to find it. The spacing between paragraphs provides cues to where you are on the page. Long paragraphs may work better when broken into two paragraphs.

Just like it's harder to stay on track reading a long paragraph, it's tough to follow when the text goes from one side of the screen to the other. The number of characters per line varies based on font size. Lines with 40 to 60 characters are the norm on sites that have well-structured paragraphs.

Gold medal tip:

Keep content concise.

Burden of Proof

Warning, typically dull stats-speak ahead. Further evidence from the study offers the following stats based on the amount of time spent during a reading session:

92% read article text

82% read briefs

64% look at photos

45% glance at banner ads

22% view graphics

Readers didn't sequentially visit pages or Web sites. Instead, they opened a page and scanned it, opened more pages in separate windows and engaged in back and forth reading among open windows. Sounds like sites need to spout compelling text with minimal pictures to accommodate hyper eyes.

Jakob Nielsen and John Morkes found that 79% of their test users scanned the page and only 16% read the page word for word. People read 25% slower online than in print providing more support for concise and scannable text.

Gold medal tip:

Make content scannable.

Give 'em Something to Talk About

The Internet has gotten a reputation for having poor quality content and Web personalities have made statements along the lines of no one wants to read long stories online. Reasons for poor quality content:

• Failure to understand audience needs
• Posting content for content's sake
• Dull writing
• Lack of using professional writers

Is the site's purpose to entertain? To teach? To sell? Whatever the goal, gear the writing style to that goal to improve visitor stickiness. When the style is established, then it's a matter of formatting the content for online viewing.

When a business haphazardly sets up its own Web site, there's a tendency to put in filler content to give the site a robust look and eliminate the white space. Doing this without any audience research leads to disengaging content. It goes back to understanding the audience.

Gold medal tip:

Write engaging content.