Making Headlines

You don't need much Fort Lauderdale web design expertise to understand that writing content for (and reading it on) the World Wide Web is worlds away from what you see with conventional media.

On the Internet, 80 percent of users scan a page instead of reading it word-for-word, which may be related to the fact that reading off your computer screen is 25 slower than from paper.

Therefore, a good web designer knows that web content should have no more than 50 percent of the word count of a paper equivalent.

Also, in print, a document forms a whole and the user focuses on the entire set of information. Online, you need to split each document into multiple hyperlinked pages, as users are not willing to read long pages.

Users can enter a site at any page and move between pages as they chose, so making each page independent and explaining its topic without assumptions about the previous page seen by the user is integral.

These are the things that distinguish an experienced Fort Lauderdale web designer from a novice, and impact a site's traffic drastically.

Another thing to do is put the most important information at the top, as most users don't have the patience to read entire pages of content.

Web users are impatient and critical, and have not chosen your site because you are so great (even though we're sure you are) but because they found you on a search engine and have something they need to do.

It's up to your web design team to make sure they stay there. Post content in easy, readable style to allow users to quickly find the info they want.

Credibility is also hugely important.

Users connect to unknown servers at remote locations on the Web that they know little or nothing about. You have to earn a user's trust, which is rapidly lost if you use exaggerated claims or boastful language.

A superior Broward County web design service will avoid marketing speak and utilize a more objective style in order to boost credibility.

Other tips include posting a few links to other sites with supporting info, so as to increase credibility of your own pages. If applicable, link to the source if you excerpt or quote from reviews or other articles.

The Web is an informal, immediate medium, compared to print, so an informal writing style is fine. However, don't look at that as a license to put up anything on a whim. Use simple sentence structure, and get to the point.

Convoluted writing and complex words are not only harder for some users to understand, but they don't translate well to the immediate need for useful data that the online marketplace demands.

Update pages as time goes by to reflect changes to your site. Broward web design providers that specialize in SEO understand the importance of this element.

Keeping your site current not only is important as far as credibility - as your statistics, numbers, and sources all need to be recent and accurate - but in terms of search engine relevance.

The better your web presence - i.e., how you look to Google and its counterparts, the more often you update your site. Period.

SOME OTHER FT. LAUDERDALE WEB DESIGN TIPS TO HELP READABILITY:

• Limit the use of graphics in general, and particularly full-page graphics. The time it takes to load them is frustrating, or fatal as far as your chance of getting business from them if their software doesn't support it.
• Include flowcharts, diagrams and captions identifying helpful info, to help the visitor understand how your product, service and site work.
• Navigating a web document differs from navigating the Web. A web document fits within one or more web pages and covers a focused topic. The web page is the unit displayed to the user and can contain one or more web documents (as well as other web elements).