How Much Are They Reading?

One of the more popular questions we get asked by our clients is about the amount of content that is required for the creation of a new website. People often have an idea of what they want to share with site visitors, but they are less sure of how much of it is actually going to be picked up by qualified web traffic.

While we are always talking about how important content is when it comes to being found online, we also caution about having too much content available. There is a fine balance of how much is too much when it comes to the length of content available on each page of your website. On one hand, a certain amount of current content is required to help your website rank higher in search engines, but on the other hand, a wall of text is not attractive, nor is it effective.

Online reading habits have constantly been evolving since the Internet was created. People are spending less and less time on websites than before because there are so many out there and their time is limited. Social networking sites that pride themselves on short blips of information provided in a constant flow, and mobile devices offering more ways to access the World Wide Web, are also changing the way people read, and how much they do.

One interesting study we refer to is Jakob Neilsen's F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content that analyzed how 232 users looked at thousands of web pages. Although it was first published in 2006, the information remains just as relevant today, and perhaps even more so.

The F-Shaped Pattern study refers to the majority of people who were studied that seemed to read an article's complete introduction from left to right. The eye patterns of each reader formed the F's "top bar". Afterwards, the amount of subsequent paragraphs that were read in full dwindled in the middle, and throughout the second half of the article, only the first couple of words of each paragraph were scanned. This shows evidence that even back in 2006, readers weren't reading website text all that thoroughly.

The F-Shaped Pattern is much like the inverted pyramid style of writing that journalists are taught, in which all of the crucial information should sit at the top of the page/article. The first two paragraphs are critical, and breaking up remaining content into smaller paragraphs eases the ability of the reader to scan your content. This often means shorter, more focused sentences are essential.

There are other ways to help out online readers as well, including breaking content down into bulleted lists and adding thoughtful sub-headings, and highlighting key words with different colours or italics. Interesting enough, more print newspapers are adopting this form of design as newspapers strive to compete with online readers.

So, when it comes to creating content for the web, we are finding that 300 to 400 words per update is plenty of information to satisfy readers. And, since frequency is also important, the best approach is to write less, but update your site more often to keep your message current. Consider breaking up a 2,000 word article into parts to increase frequency of next content. This will encourage site visitors to return to read the next article. This type of frequency is also important because new content added regularly will translate into a net positive impact on your site's search ranking.

Still, keep in mind that some site visitors will want all of the info in one sitting. How do you cater to both? Post shorter pieces in a popular area of your website and provide links to the longer story if one is available. You may also want to consider providing downloadable product brochures and spec sheets in addition, which is recommended for many of the technical trades that our company does business with.

Otherwise, tease people with an introduction to each article in one section so that if preliminary scans peak their interest, readers can either click for more info, or continue to scan other articles.