How To Make Better Web Content - Part 1

A user needs to understand your web page in under 5 seconds.

A web crawler needs to understand your web page in under 150 words.

Both of them need to see some sort of web content in under 3 seconds.

Speed matters, especially speed of understanding. We live in a time where a potential customer needs to understand your message and needs to understand it QUICKLY. Otherwise, they will just move on to the next topic or competitor.

The same concept exists for a web crawler. If they feel like they understand your website within the first 150 words, they too might bounce.

Just as much as a human doesn’t want to spend extra time and effort of their life trying to understand a concept, so too a web crawler doesn’t want to spend extra energy and server time figuring out the point of a particular web page.

So make things easy for both parties!

This blog post series will cover simple things you can do to design your website in an understandable manner. Let’s start with the first one.

Succinct Summaries.

Start by making your header exactly the message someone should walk away with, that also describes your business or organization. This header should include your target keyword for the page, ideally as close to the front as possible.

Consider a header we have used:

Freelance Web Developer in Houston TX.

This alone provides a ton of data about what I do, in 6 words.

What do I do? Web Development.

Where is my business? Houston, Texas.

Am associated with a big firm? No, I’m freelance.

Say for example instead of the header above, I chose to use a phrase like:

Stunning, elegant, passionate design

or

A great choice for your business

or

Google ranking made easy.

Can you honestly say that you understand more of what I do from a phrase like that? What if that was all you had time to read? Would it tell you much about my business?

Maybe a little information would come across, but not as much as our actual header. So don’t do this to your own website!

Reading this article, this might make perfect sense to use better lead in text. However, I have seen smart people do this exact thing. I’ve even had clients pull my SEO optimized and concise header out, to put something in that completely clouded people’s understanding of their web page.

What does make sense is to use the above headers in a more descriptive manner, maybe making each their own section with some description underneath it. The text itself isn’t bad, it just isn’t anything to lead with.

Start making better web content today by simplifying what data you are communicating to a robot and a user.

If you need help with this, don’t hesitate to contact Krell Software. We are your go to freelance web design company.