An important question all with websites should ask them-self is “what is needed for great text copy for web pages”?. Opinions differ here but from what I’ve read, and my own experience while studying Journalism and working as a English compositional tutor, the principal of good copy is the same for web as it is for print, with the exception that for web the text copy needs to be briefer in most cases. The long and short is that Great Web Copy is engaging, utilizes structure, is easily read and understood, and is SEO optimized.
Message Clarity
Most importantly is the need of message clarity. From a structural standpoint good text copy tells the reader what they can expect (overview), clearly conveys your message (message clarity), and then summarizes what you’ve said (conclusion). If you’re thinking this is in the same as writing a composition paper, yes, you are correct. The thinking is that most people (since we quickly scan content) will easily forget what we’ve read and this compositional style helps to ensure that our copy is remembered. As for the organization of content, what I like to do is to create an outline of the key points I wish to convey. If I am writing about a company’s services I will make a list of the services and then group all related content to a given service type. In most cases it becomes relatively easy to see what is a primary and what is supplemental. After the brainstorming process I look to see where the content fits best in a page’s layout much like is done in Journalism with their inverted pyramid style. In this case the most important information is placed up front, and this is followed by supportive content, user testimonials, statistical evidence, etc.
Message Trust
One’s reaction to what is said is another important consideration. When the message conveyed reads “untrue” then it won’t take long for most people to quickly lose interest. Clearly the claims made must be realistic and supportable. If you say that your company is the best, then you need to support why your company is the best. Most people are influenced by statistical evidence and turned off by unsupportable claims. In this regard if you have statistics, and can employ graphs and other supportive elements then this is an important inclusion. Using statistics from unbiased sources instills a level of credibility. The important thing to add here is that it is important to ensure that there are no grammatical or spelling mistakes since this can also lead to distrust. Another suggestion of the professional copy writers is to ensure that some of your text is “conversational”. Write copy as if you were talking to a friend, ask questions of your readers, and ask for their feedback.
Descriptive and Engaging Titles
Since your Website visitors will typically scan content as opposed to reading it in its entirety it is very important for the content of your pages to employ good titles. A good title will be SEO optimized (target keywords) and at the same time provide a clear overview of what the content will contain. Good titles will motivate the casual browser to read further, and potentially explore deeper into your web pages. Some content marketers suggest the use of playful and entertaining headlines for your content, which would work well for web uses such as banner advertisements, blog articles, and calls-to-actions.
Headings Provide Structure
The next things to realize is that while it is important to use keyword rich headings, use them sparingly. Web designers who understand SEO utilize the heading <H1> tag for all primary page titles which is correct; yet too many <H1> tags, at least visually, can off-put a reader as they are unable to prioritize content importance. As with all aspects of design structure needs to be employed, and consistent; use one primary header for a page’s body content, then utilize sub-headers <H2>, <h3>, etc. Generally 3 sub-headings is considered best. Bullets and numeric lists are also effective since they also provide structure as supportive elements and will catch a visitor’s eye and allow them to quickly note this information.
Text Content Layout
It is also important to consider how the content is presented on the page. Newspapers and magazines have long recognized that since people scan content with their eyes it is better to break up large blocks of text into a columnar format. There are reasons why newspapers use columns, and books are a particular width — words become easily missed when lines are too long. It’s the same on the Web which means that content columns should rarely, if ever, exceed 60 characters. I often utilize columnar text on the home page when there is a large welcome or overview statement. I utilize “read more” buttons/links to keep content blocks relatively short, and have found the sidebar to be an effective way to include additional content and reduce the text content in the body section of a page. The footer can also be utilized effectively for additional content in many cases. In some cases it can be effective to break-up a large text block with a quote, statistic, or testimonial in line with the copy.
Text Content Color
Color is another important area of consideration. First one needs to recognize that the page text color needs to provide ample contrast with the page color. In many cases I have seen pages with a dark color, wallpaper, image, or gradient with dark text … this makes the page nearly unreadable. From an ADA compliancy standpoint this should never be done. If you have a dark background you can use white text (a light complimentary hue is often effective here since white may be too stark), or if you have a light (non-white) background you can use dark text color (dark brown text on a yellow background for example). And my personal peeve … don’t use colors for text that don’t integrate into the design. Typically when a web layout is created 2 or 3 complimentary colors will be used. This provides the necessary visual balance and structure. The text colors used need to work with this and should be consistent across the pages. I often come across websites which will use several text colors on a single page such as purple, blue, pink and red – both for headings and body copy. My reaction … wow, how awful!!! I trust that one may think this is “fun” or pretty, but trust me, it doesn’t work.
Text Size and Style
Font choice, size and its styling is is also important. Firstly, avoid graphical text where possible. By now you should realize that graphics can’t be read by the search engines or adaptive technology, and while a link, alt, and title tag will be read, the graphic will not provide the HTML keyword/s for indexing. As for text in general, there is now a lot of freedom about what can be used. In the past there were a handful of fonts that were considered safe across browsers and platforms, yet now with Cufon and Web-Safe font linking (Google, Adobe, etc), we have a lot more options. That being said, my suggestion is to use stylized fonts only for headings and text accents. Remember that text needs to be easily read so stick with the established serif and non-serif fonts for body text copy. Font spacing, line height, shadows, gradients, and alignment may make or break the effectiveness of your text. As a rule I like to provide a little additional space in line height, but use other text styling options sparingly. Finally the text size for headings and body copy need to be consistent as well. For the heading-1 tag you may want its size at 24px, heading-2 tag at 16px, body copy at 12px, etc. Keep this consistent across the pages, and utilize the same color for headings and body copy across the pages. The exceptions being for footers, sidebars, call-outs, and multicolored designs. In those cases a change in color is acceptable, so long as we are consistent in the formatting conventions within these areas across pages.
Assuming that your text copy’s purpose is to acquire a sale, or get the visitor to contact you, then be sure to incorporate a “call to action”. Calls to action come in many forms from a link, simple form, buttons, etc. In essence you are requesting that to the visitor to “contact us now to learn more”. Research has shown that many people will in fact do what you request if you simply ask them to.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about what I’ve written or need design assistance.
https://www.ecurtisdesigns.com
