Although web content is an essential part of creating a good user experience, it is often overlooked. Stunning photographs, amazing colors, and great typography enhance the user experience on your site and are desirable for every website. However, without great web content, that suits your target audience and is suitable for your brand, you will probably not achieve an emotional connection with your visitors. This ultimately lowers your chances of converting them into customers.
In this article, we will begin by explaining what is web content and why it is essential. We will indicate some points that you should keep in mind the next time you design web content.
What do we mean by web content?
When you think “web content” the first thing that probably comes to mind is a variety of blog articles. However, content not only refers to the text of articles or news but any type of text from titles, labels to images and illustrations. In the case of e-commerce sites, it also applies to the labels of each product.
If you take this meaning of web content into account, you realize a large percentage of a website is considered content. The way content is structured on a website can greatly affect a user’s experience. For improved user experience, take into account the way you structure your content as well as the message and personality of your brand and the specific preferences of your target audience.
What does “designing” content mean?
Designing is much more than thinking about the aesthetic aspect of a website. You should also think about the content. Depending on the volume of content, you can choose an appropriate layout to organize it. However, this is only the beginning of the process. Thinking about the content is not only limited to structuring the site properly but also thinking about the text, the title, and subtitles, the words you plan to highlight, etc. Some of the actions you can take to optimize your content are the following:
• Include internal links to other blog articles.
• Place social media buttons in a visible place.
• Insert images, statistical graphics, videos, and other multimedia content, in particular, if the information is extensive.
• Include videos, podcasts, and infographics as separate content. That is, they are not part of a larger article, but are blog articles and have their entry.
• Include external links that are relevant to the main topic of the article.
Apart from structuring the site properly, you should think about colors and the right font for the body of text and titles. This depends on factors such as the type of website and the brand. If it’s a blog or an online magazine, then you can work with dynamic content and place the latest posts or the most popular articles on one of the sidebars.
The purpose of the content
Apart from considering the structure, you should also think about how the user interacts with the website. As usual, a user reviews a site following the pattern of the letters “F” or “Z”. This knowledge gives you some clues about the design because you already know where you can place the most relevant content to get the attention of your visitors.
Another point to keep in mind is that your visitors may not check the entire website and see each page following some of the patterns mentioned above. Their view will rest on those elements that are most interesting to them. For this reason, it is essential to know and implement these patterns in your design to know where you should place the most important elements.
In addition to considering user reading patterns, you should place visual clues and clear indications for users. While there are several sections on a website that users can visit, you should not forget that there is a purpose behind the entire website. This objective becomes more apparent on landing pages as the call to action button serves as an indicator for visitors. Simple animations and transitions also serve as a visual clue for users as they can indicate if any button can be clicked, if a certain page or element is loading, etc.
Common situations
When structuring a website, you must take into account the volume of content. You may find yourself in one of these two situations: work with a large volume of content or with a small volume. In both situations, there are complications when structuring a site. With a large amount of content, it will be tricky for you to organize the sections and with a small amount of content, the site may look incomplete.
There are simple solutions for each of these situations. Although, it is not an infallible formula because you have to know how many topics the site has and how to properly divide the sections. However, it may be helpful to use the solutions mentioned below as resources:
• In the case of a large amount of content, it is always useful to work with several columns. You can also use Card-design. That way, you can divide the content into smaller fragments, which improves readability and is easier for the user to digest.
• If the site has small content, it is much more essential to differentiate the content you want to highlight to put more emphasis on design. In this case, you can work with more dynamic backgrounds, such as large images or even videos as background.
Conclusion
Thinking about how to optimize the presentation of content is about understanding users. A site that does not understand the behavior and needs of its users will not generate a good conversion rate and ultimately will not meet the objectives that have been set. Ensuring an optimal user experience depends not only on the functionality of the site but also on its objectives and on the preferences of the users.
Featured image credit: Unsplash.com
Melissa Crooks is Content Writer who writes for Hyperlink InfoSystem, a mobile app development company in New York, USA and India that holds the best team of skilled and expert app developers. She is a versatile tech writer and loves exploring latest technology trends, entrepreneur and startup column. She also writes for top app development companies.
