Tuesday May 6, 2008
How little do your website visitors read?
On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites it was found that 79 percent of users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.
As a result, Web pages have to employ scannable text, using:
- highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
- meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)
- bulleted lists
- one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
- the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
- half the word count (or less) than conventional writing
Bottom line: Think long and hard about the text you put on your website, most of it is never going to be read by anyone. Following the guidelines above will make a difference to your leads and sales.
