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Writing the Content for Your Site: Washington Independent Writers Technology Conference,
October 21, 2000
I'm sure all of you attended this panel wanting the "Golden Words of Wisdom" for Web content. You'll have to forgive me. The answer is—(drumroll, please)
In a nutshell, it all depends. It always depends. It all depends on the usual content factors:
Now, I want you all to know my print background. I was editorial assistant for an association magazine five years before the Internet position opened up. And a major reason I got the job—and made the transition to online content—was that I made "quality control" an important aspect of my vision.
Audience
As always, check your audience. What information—what content—do they want? How do they want it? How deep should you go? A particularly Internet component is "What links should you provide?"
Usability studies with real users are the most reliable; otherwise, you're operating under educated guesses.
One key to checking audience is to check existing print publications. There is a difference between print and online documents—but you have to start with the audience analysis, and since the print publications have an historical edge over site content, they may be more reliable.
Of course, this assumes you have print publications. Some sites may be purely virtual. Other options for audience analysis include feedback entries and (if you can get this information) other sites that your audience visits (and what they like about them, and dislike).
Another way to check what content your audience wants is to check your statistics report: where are people going, what PDFs are they downloading. The most popular pages on our site—consistently, month after month—are jobs, conference, training, and publications listed in our biweekly e-mail newsletter.
Websites also need to convey information that WE need them to have, such as conference events, cancelled class information—the sort of information that they may not know that they need.
One thing to remember that may help you GET content for the site: I "sell" the website to IACP staff by saying, "The website will forestall phone calls you'd otherwise have to answer—so what questions are you getting?"
Purpose
I've observed that websites are moving beyond shovelware, or brochureware. That's the term for throwing up all of your marketing brochures on your website.
Consider the goals of the site. At theiacp.org, I focus on association-specific information and events—not law enforcement-specific, or a portal. There would be a market for it, certainly, but we're not allocating our resources thus.
So the content goal isn't so much, "Read my stuff" but "Read my stuff and DO something." So consider what your audience is going to do:
- E-mail someone?
- Fill out a survey?
- Buy something?
- Download a document?
- Participate in a discussion forum?
Find out what they're going to want to do, and then make it easy for them to do it. One easy way to do that is to give clear directions and use command verbs.
Medium
Content is more than words. It's images, logos, art, animation, audio/video, interactivity—even music.
IACP delivers mainly text content because we have to consider not only our international members but also our rural members—the majority of our member population—who may not have fast connections, or who may be connecting at home. We're very Least Common Denominator.
But none of it should be on your site just because you can. Before I became Websites Manager, there was an IACP site with music on it. I could never figure out WHY.
As a fellow Web Woman says, "Given sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, that's not necessarily a good idea."
The 10 Suggestions
There are some guidelines floating around—I call them myths, not because I think they're necessarily untrue, but because debate periodically heats up around them. (Many of these are my take on advice from Jakob Nielsen, the usability guru.)
- People don't read, they scan.
Well, yes and no. It depends. It depends on the audience and their purpose in visiting the website. For example, I primarily write content for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Our overarching goal for the site (as well as the magazine and all other publications) is to publish the information our members need to do their jobs better.
Toward that end, we focus on a simple, clear, direct style. It's not colorful or creative by any stretch of the imagination. It's not meant to be. Much of it is destined for policy and procedures manuals.
However, I read some fanfic (fan fiction) sites that are amazingly prolix and widely—and closely—read. There are "books" (e-books?) that go on for chapters, and people (fellow fans) not only read every word, they remember every word and discuss it in excruciating detail. Adjectives, adverbs, you name it.
So, it does all depend on audience and what they want. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.
- People don't want to scroll.
Well, yes and no. Some people don't like reading on line (for very good reason—essentially, type is wiggling on the screen). Many people don't like clicking to continue getting tiny chunks of content. Most people don't like scrolling horizontally.
Now, I hate scrolling horizontally. If I have to do it, I won't read the material. But I'd rather scroll vertically than keep clicking for tiny chunks. Of course, my offline—that's known as books, magazines, newspapers—reading habits are beginning to reflect my online habits.
One thing the website statistics have revealed is that my readers want the material in one piece that they can print out—which means PDFs. But they are a bunch of older guys whose eyesight is beginning to fade.
- Bulleted lists are easier to scan and make the page easier to read online, so if you can reduce some of the text to bullets, do so.
- Strip out marketing language. Of course, that's my particular audience—police chiefs—I'm sure mar/com people would prefer to read—and write!—as much mar lang as people will read. Again, audience.
- Provide print-friendly/PDF versions. This is a particularly helpful feature of washingtonpost.com and the unfortunately defunct womenconnect.com. br>
- Cut out repetition—save people's time. You'll have a grateful audience that comes to you for information that makes their jobs—and lives—easier.
- Examine your traffic reports/statistics for trends and get user feedback. When we started putting PDFs on the site, I noticed on our monthly reports that people were accessing them. Even more flattering was DEA's request to publish some of their relevant PDFs on the IACP site—because we got more traffic.
- Update your content. Staleness is fatal in Web time. Ask staff to be your eyes—they don't want to get the calls any more than you do.
- Write for your user, not yourself. I personally like wordplay, but it would not be appropriate for my audience. The most adventurous I've been so far on the IACP page was to put "Enter the Job Zone" on a careers page, and, in an unprecedented surge of boldness, write that another law enforcement publication had "goofed." That may be as "hip" as I'm ever able to be on www.theiacp.org.
Of course, on the DC Web Women site (www.dcwebwomen.org), my audience is very different. I edit the LegalEase column, which was an appropriate place for "Workers by Any Other Name," "Think Before You Link" and "Clients from Hell" titles.
- If you can't edit and proofread your own site content, hire someone to do so. There is no excuse for errors in website content when the exposure is immediate and international.
In fact, when I took over the website two and a half years ago, I did so was because I saw so many typos. My mantra was, "We look like fools online. No one could possibly take us seriously."
A professional site has to be professional in design, in content, and presentation. Period. (sorry, Point.) Full Stop. End of Story.
Of course, online content is a fascinating, infinitely discussable topic, and my colleague Merry Bruns offers a periodic "Content and Coffee" meeting. See her website for more information: Sciencesitescom.com
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