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Tips on Creating Effective Content

Using the Page Details

Each page of your site provides you as an author with a number of places to enter content. Each of these locations is important for everything from usability to search engine rankings. Take the time to fill them out with appropriate, effective copy, and your site will stand out as a more valuable resource for your users.

Screen capture of edit screen.

1. Title

This is the title of the page as it appears at the top of the page content, and in the title bar of the web browser. It needs to convey what the page is about without being too verbose. Remember, the title is what appears in a search result listing when using Google or another search engine.

2. URL Alias

This is the address of your page. If someone bookmarks your page, or emails the link to someone else, the text you put in this field will be the final part of the address. Overall, your address should make sense when read without context, and should mimic the breadcrumb trail on your site. Use keywords, but be as brief as possible. Search engines also pay attention to the words in your page address.

3. Navigation Text

This allows you to have different text appear in the navigation than the title of the page. For example, your page title might be "About Our Company," but you may only want it to appear as "About" in your navigation. This text should be brief and unique enough to convey the content of the page when taken in the context of the overall site and the page linking it.

4. Summary

Use this space to enter a 255 character description of your page. Use your keywords, describe the page, but be brief.

5. Meta Description

This content is used as the meta content for the page, and some search engines, such as Google, use it as the abstract of the page in search results.

6. Meta Keywords

Use this space to add keywords specific to the page. While not ranked very heavily by search engines when considering the overall relevancy of a page, it's still a good idea to insert those keywords. These keywords are also used for the internal site search.

7. Hidden Keywords

The keywords you enter here are never visible to the user or a search engine. They are only used by the internal site search. This is a great place to include common misspellings, spell out proper names, or reference external resources without planting them in your page copy.

Writing Style

Research has shown that the writing on a web site has a significant impact on the usability (and therefore effectiveness) of a site - up to 125% improvement. The following are outline guidelines, which may significantly improve the impact of our copy.

  1. Be succinct - no more than 50% of equivalent wordage in print
    BECAUSE
    Reading from screens is substantially slower than from paper. Users intensely dislike reading long texts.
    1. Be scannable - structure articles with 2 or 3 headlines (nested if necessary).
    2. Use meaningful rather than teaser headlines and subheads (reading a headline should tell users what the section's about).
    3. Use text weight and color to add highlighting and emphasis.
    4. Use bulleted lists.
      BECAUSE
      1. Users do not read copy in full (at least not on 1st reading), they scan. Headlines and page titles are often viewed out of context.
      2. Users are adept at disregarding everything that does not look like a clear headline and do not waste their time on links which may be a waste of time.
    1. Structure long documents. Content should not be arbitrarily cut up into page 1, page 2 etc. Each page should encapsulate a discrete topic. Each page should be written as an inverse pyramid, with a clear summary of the page at the start.
    2. Secondary and background information should always be available on separate pages accessed from a link.
    3. Printable versions should be on a single page.
      BECAUSE
      While users dislike long documents, they particularly dislike having to download several pages to cover one topic. They do like choice over which subtopics to read.
  4. Use cool, objective language to build credibility.
    BECAUSE
    Users detest marketing copy - a promotional style with boastful claims. Users are busy, they want the facts, and tend to believe content which gives it to them without embellishment.
    1. Linked text should describe where the links lead, not give ?click here? instructions. An appropriate way to consider linked text is that it should represent the headline of the content users will arrive at.
    2. Use link titles to give additional explanation if warranted.
      BECAUSE
      Users do not follow bad links, and links can be presented out of context by certain browsers and search engines. ?Click here? instructions also break up the flow of text and make it more difficult to read.

Bibliography: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/