Bright Ideas # 46 – Getting It Organized: Part IV of Why Writing for the Web is Different 

If you’ve been following along for the past few weeks, you know I am now deep into a discussion of “What’s So Different about Writing for the Web”.

So far, I’ve talked about what people really want in a Website. And about what they need in order to feel good about buying from you. Then, in my last email, I talked about writing and formatting your content to suit both skimmers and readers.

So now it’s time to talk about organizing your content to meet both your customer’s business’ goals as well. In order to do that effectively, you have to take three things into consideration:

1. The main goal of your site
2. The action you want people to take on each page
3. What people are going to see first on your site

Hopefully you’ve got number one figured out already. If not, there’s no time like the present. So take a step back and think about it a bit.

Your website could: position you as an expert, grow your list, answer key questions, be a resource, sell products, or any number of other things. But if you want it to help you grow your business, you need to pick one.

On to question two…

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“What action do you want people to take on each page”?
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Do you want them to: Go to another page? Sign up for a newsletter? Listen to an audio? Visit your products page? Call you? Send an email? Buy something? Sign up for tap dance lessons?

Answering this question is especially critical to how organize your content. Because if you want people to sign up for your newsletter, for instance, you can’t bury the sign up button at the bottom of the page. Instead you want it to be the first thing people see.

So think about this for a bit, then move on to question number three…

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What are people going to see when they arrive on your site?
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Well, the first thing they are going to see is the part of the page that is visible without scrolling. And you should always assume they will only see as much as shows up with the screen resolution set at 800x600 (the smallest setting).

So anything important like, say, your main navigation, your logo, what you do, or any special offers better be near the top of the screen. Because you never know for sure if someone is going to scroll down.

The next thing to keep in mind is how people’s eyes move around the screen.

If you’ve ever looked into this, you’ve probably seen images of Web pages with a bunch of crazy zigzag lines going all over the place. Thankfully, recent studies have shown there is a much simpler pattern you can use as a guideline: the big F.

Let me explain…

As a general rule, people look at the top left corner of your page first, then scan across to the top right. After that, they drop their eyes partway down the screen and scan from left to right again. Then finally they scan down the left side of the page to create the F pattern.

Some people may scan across again lower down (creating an E). And if your navigation is on the right, they may scan down that side as well. But the F is a good guideline.

So now, with all this in mind, it’s time to design the layout for your main site pages. The easiest way is by creating simple storyboards—either on paper or on the computer.

Start by drawing a big box to represent your Webpage. Now, put a horizontal line in it to define the part of the page that is visible on screen without scrolling.

Next, draw and label boxes for your logo, navigation buttons, and tag line if you have one. Finally, add boxes to represent the rest of your content (text, images, special offers, testimonials, etc.) and where each piece should go on the page.

If you have a lot of content, consider breaking it up into three vertical columns. Usually a big column in the middle for main content and a narrow one on each side for additional navigation, special info or testimonials works well.

Always remember, you don’t want to overwhelm the viewer with too many choices or too much stuff. So keep the core purpose of each page firmly in mind as you define the layout.

Once you’ve got your storyboards done, you are just about ready to finalize your written content. But, before you do, you’re going to want to make sure it’s designed to please the search engines as well. So I’ll talk about that next week…

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Do you have a marketing, advertising or writing question you’d like to have answered? Email me and you might see the answer in a future edition of Bright Ideas.

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