Keep it Short and Sweet

Recently, I was researching information for another site. Like most internet users, I was in a hurry and looking for something specific. Eight out the ten sites that I visited had me searching for the information that they had promised in there search engine results. In four of those I just gave up.

Sites that make it hard to find information sometimes do this to plug their advertisements or make money by some other means. What really happens is that the visitor loses patience and feels ripped off. The result is low credibility for the site and lack of return visits.

Here is how to get to the point and avoid losing your visitors in a maze.

• Keep your posts short and sweet. Have an introductory paragraph, a conclusion paragraph, and several explanation paragraphs in between. Anything more may seem like you have more than one topic and you need to break it up into more posts.
  
  
• Do not make your visitor have to "click here" more than once. Twice is the maximum to ever have to "click here".
  
  
• Edit out all of those filler words. Nobody wants to read Blah, Blah, Blah and Blah.
  
  
• Bold, Bullet and Number to break up monotony and get ideas across.
  
  
• Be descriptive enough to get the facts out. Your goal is to not make anyone have to read your mind. Start with the major points and explain them.
  
  
• Don't make people have to sit through a Flash or other intro to get to where they are going. Six seconds can feel like an eternity when you are searching for information.
  
  
• Keep your advertisements in their own territory. Don't make people have to scroll or deal with something popping out at them when they are in the middle of reading an article.
  
  
• Make your links make sense. That is, if you use link a word to something, that something should be a further explanation of that word. A definition or research site works well.
  
  
• Test those links. Readers don't want to land on a 404 page.
  
  

The idea that I am conveying to you is to get to the point, keep it short and sweet. Credibility and a good reputation are things that take time and hard work. The results pay off with many new and returning visitors.