Studies have shown what you already know to be true - reading a web page is very different to reading a printed page. Many people dislike reading web pages so much that they print them out to read in greater detail later. However, most visitors to your web site will skim through your content and make quick judgment as to whether or not it is worth printing and reading later.

If you are one of the many small business owners turned newbie web authors, you need to know a few simple guidelines for publishing reader-friendly, effective web content that will have your visitors staying around for more.

Make Your Point and Make it Fast
You have to grab your visitor's attention immediately so that in those few precious moments that a visitor scans your web page to see if it is relevant to them, they can see that it is. How is this achieved?

Here are my ten top tips to writing effective web content:

1. Bold/enlarge your subject headings so that they are clear
2. Use short sentences and very short paragraphs - a few sentences per paragraph tops
3. Break up long content and link it to bullet points at the top of the page
4. Give concise information - get to the bare bones fast, don't waffle!
5. Cross-reference your content with other pages
6. Keep content relevant to the subject header - extraneous information should go elsewhere
7. Make use of white space to make your text easy to read
8. Format your page's text content width to narrow - don't make visitors scan long lines of text - they won't for long
9. Use your keywords in a manner that won't bore the reader - don't needlessly repeat them: Google might like you some, but your readers won't
10. Well written, relevant content is important - use a spell checker so typos don't let you down

Small business owners often leave their web sites full of old, stale content. If you are a small business owner in this situation, and you want to write effective web content but don't have time to add new copy, take the above tips and re-work what you already have. You don't have to spend hours cranking out new web content as often aesthetic enhancements can go a long way to making your web site an easy read.


Fran Jeanes is a freelance web designer who specializes in small business web site design. To learn more about how to have a successful small business web site visit http://www.icontactwebdesign.com.