November 29, 2007
Making Your Content Accessible, Readable and Searchable
In Writing
When a user searches for information, he wants it quickly he wants it brought to him in well presented form.
In earlier days of internet users were patient and could sieve through pages to look for information.
This was when internet was slow, scripts were not efficient & search engines were evolving.
But as internet grew, so were our expectations and as a result our habits changed.
Today, when a searcher wants to look for a query he wants the answer to come to him instead of going to search for an answer.
When you develop content on your website, you need to keep in mind the habits of your visitors and the things that you need to make your content presentable & searchable.
Remember! If you can help visitors to easily find what they are looking for, you are almost guaranteed to generate repeat visits.
To present information effectively, you can take help of these suggestions.
Chunk Yours Text Bites:
Break your text into short bite sized texts. Use frequent sub-headings, bullets and a lot of white space in your writing.
Doing this would enable to your readers to scan the information they want.
Remember! On computer people do not read as they read in print. They tend to scan pages.
To pass maximum information across you must refrain from continuous text and break that into
Link To Onsite Related Materials:
This is very helpful in case your users wish to search for more information. This also increases the time that users would stay on you website.
Add Search:
If your website hosts a lot of content, you must put a onsite search facility. This would enable your visitors to conduct keyword searches to find information.
If you are already using adsense you can add Google search to your site. This also would help to bring in more revenue.
Keep Adding Fresh Content:
Fresh content adds to site usability and gives a everfresh look to your website. You would be ranked better in search engines. You must write or arrange to get fresh content added.
Use Suitable Fonts:
Use a font that looks good on web. Keep your fonts readable and avoid fancy or complex fonts.
It is best to stick to clean fonts like Arial, Trebuchet, Helvetica or Verdana.
Write, Do Not Advertise:
Rick Levine of sun mircosystems once said-
‘Word of web will trump word of hype every time’
So resist advertising and focus or providing comprehensive information.
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