The revolution that takes the brand presentation to a higher and omnipotent level started with the invention of the World Wide Web. While a website facilitates marketers to present their products and services with detailed descriptions, it also allows the brand to show the values, ethics, and other products and services they are offering. A website is more like a bucked with multiple portals that lead to different information centers about the brand. Most e-commerce websites allow people to post their reviews and ratings to guide potential consumers to make purchase decisions. The entire existence of a commercial website is to provide information about the brand and the organization behind it while other kinds of non-commercial websites also serve as the information centers but on a different scale. Three basic building blocks that complete a website and they are the domain and server where the website will be hosted for views to search and access, the coding and designing section that provides the structure and look to the website and the content and creative section that serves the information to the seekers. While the first two sections require more technical expertise the last section demands the usage of creative abilities to produce the content for the website.
The content part which primarily deals with the information related to the products and services requires following some norms that govern the viewers’ attention on the website. Style of content for the website is different from the content written for books, magazines, newspapers, articles, blogs and similar as there are few strict rules needs to be followed while preparing content for the website because the web content is a mixture of textual and visual elements which helps to create a user experience for a website. Thought the style of content varies from commercial websites to personal websites, the content developer needs to remember certain points while developing content for websites.
Know about the target audience
The most important reason to launch a website is to showcase the brand and its benefits to its target consumers. That is why a few questions need to be answered like who will be the primary and secondary audience? What level of education you are expecting from them? is the audience sensitive about your product or service? and similar as the content of the website directly affects the decision-making process of the consumers.
Inverted pyramid format
The content of the website will also follow a similar pattern as we see in the newspapers. Considering the short attention span of the viewers, the most important and relevant information will be at the top while slowly and gradually explaining the minute details of the same. All types of websites should follow a similar pattern and design while working on their content.
Short and simple writing
When writing the content of a website, one should always remember that they are writing for the viewers who have a shorter attention period and average educational clearings. Therefore it is advised to use short sentences that are easily understandable and carry simpler words but at the same time interesting enough to attract the viewers. The difficulty of the language also differs on the nature of the website, for example, a research-based educational website will certainly have a higher level of language usage than an e-commerce site. It is also advisable to use active voice rather than passive one for a better understanding of the readers. The use of jargon should also be avoided as much as possible because that might create confusion while reading an important piece of information leading to consumer disagree and rejection of the website.
Easier to navigate
Most of the readers do not prefer to read all the content that is been laid out on the page as they skim through the entire text looking for the specific information required for them. That is why text-heavy paragraphs should be replaced by short and informative paragraphs and if possible tag them with subheads and bullet points to make the information easier to digest. Information should also be spread out in a manner to make them easily traceable, else they might drive the visitors away from the website.
Visually appealing
Including pictures, graphics, videos, animation, diagrams, maps, and similar will help in retaining the reader’s attention towards the page as text-heavy sites might seem boring for readers to skim through. Including visually attractive elements to a page would increase the traffic to a particular website and also helps in engaging the visitors for a longer period. Usage of pictures and videos is absolutely necessary while writing for a product based website while charts and diagrams are often come handy for research-based websites.
Linking pages
Restricting the access of the viewers on one page is not desirable which creates the requirement to embed hyperlinks inside the page content to direct the viewers to other important and relevant pages. For example, if the website demands the viewers to contact them through their website, then the contact us page should be hyperlinked within other pages to drive visitors towards the desirable page. Sometimes the call to action links is also embedded within the website content to make the users click on the links to reach the desired location.
The purpose of creating a website varies based on the nature of the business but it reflects the image of the brands through its products and services, while website content certainly helps in clarifying the claims of the brands to the users.