Get to the Point
Developer Eric Anderson details why a clear, concise message is essential to a successful website.
Photo by Jess Bailey
One of the most challenging parts of creating a good website is deciding what content will be presented. This is arguably the most important ingredient of a website and deserves the most attention. Generally, there is a lot of information that needs to be covered. Content is hard to get right.
If it’s going to be good, you’ve got to cut through all the noise, find your voice, and get to the point.
The stakes are high. When you don’t craft your message, the viewer will still get a message, but it may not be the one you are trying to communicate. Additionally, the more content you add, the harder it will be for a person to find what you want them to see. When this happens, people won’t dig deeper — they’ll just leave. Following these steps will ensure that your content will serve the viewer in the best way possible.
Step 1: Collect the Content
Many times, web content is kept in various forms: docs, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, shared folders, email threads, chat rooms, mood boards, whiteboards — in other words, it’s all over the place. Having content is good, but it’s not enough. It needs to be organized and structured for an audience to consume.
Step 2: Organize Content
By now, you’ll have a good idea of what pages you need to provide on your website, based on the content you’ve collected. Next, create an outline to organize all your content into pages, and create a set of folders to hold everything you need for each page. Keep words in docs and images in a folder.
Step 3: Edit, Ruthlessly
This is the most important step. DO NOT SKIP. The real purpose of the previous organizing step is twofold: First, to frame your message, and second, to decide what is able to be removed. It’s hard to edit. You’ve spent so much time collecting, planning, and organizing all this stuff, why would you take some out?
But here’s the thing — people have limited time and attention when it comes to browsing websites. The more content there is to consume, the lower the chances are that someone will find the good stuff. If there is content that isn’t absolutely necessary for a viewer to understand your offer, get rid of it. Less is truly more here. The more you edit, the more concise your offering will be.
Point Begotten
Remember that the content you present is for the viewer, not for yourself. Always consider your content from the viewers’ point of view to really determine what your point is, and get to it straight away. Put extra effort into creating, organizing, and editing your content, and your website will be better for it. A clear, concise, and easy-to-consume message means people are going to pick up what you’re putting down.
— Eric Anderson, WOTW developer
