Gone are the days when content creation involved crafting copy that’s well constructed and carries your key messages. These days, content creation involves a whole lot more, including ticking the user-friendly box.
Having a user-friendly website is no longer an option, it’s a priority for ensuring your site is accessible to everybody, regardless of whether they’re viewing your site on their desktop, mobile or tablet device.
What you write on your site is just as important as the design, as it goes hand-in-hand with enhancing the overall customer journey. Get it wrong, and your visitors will abandon your site, never to return again. Get it right, and your visitors are likely to stick around and (hopefully) recommend you to others.
Whether you’re writing new mobile content or want to adapt your existing copy, here are five ways you can ensure it’s user-friendly:
- Don’t waffle
With smartphones overtaking laptops as UK internet users’ number one device (Ofcom), we’re officially a smartphone society in which people tend to ‘snack’ on information in their spare time. Keep your sentences short, concise and to the point to ensure your readers get what they need in bite-sized chunks that are easy to skim-read. The last thing they want (or have time for) is scrolling through endless paragraphs of text.
- Be structured
As well as keeping your paragraphs short and concise, you need to give the overall structure of your copy some thought. This will ensure that your streamlined content will have a clear flow and provide your readers with direction. For instance, using clear headlines instantly communicates what your content is about, while sub headings act as pointers and make it easier for your readers to skim through and quickly find the information they’re looking for.
- Use images
Images are great for breaking up your text and illustrating what your content’s about in an instant. According to HubSpot, content with relevant images attracts 94% more views than content without images. Using relevant visuals will also help make your content easier to scan and give your visitors a clearer idea of what you’re communicating.
- Sound natural
As tempting as it might be to ‘keyword stuff’ (in which you try and squeeze as many of your keywords and key phrases into your content to boost your SEO rankings), you need to avoid it, at all costs. Not only has good old Google gotten wise to it and will penalise you, you’ll also wind up with a batch of content that doesn’t sound very human. And if it doesn’t sound human, then it isn’t going to resonate with your readers. Still write your content with your keywords in mind, but ensure that when you do sprinkle them in, they sound natural, not forced and don’t appear in every other sentence.
- Use videos
Businesses that use videos enjoy 41% more web traffic from search than non-users (Aberdeen). Videos are taking content marketing by storm right now and according to Cisco, they’ll account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic by 2017. What’s more, YouTube receives more than one billion unique visitors every month and one in three Britons are reported to view at least one online video a week. Need I say more? As with your images, make sure they’re relevant and it’s clear from your headings and captions what they’re about. One final tip: don’t use Flash, it doesn’t work on many mobile devices.
So, there you have it, five practical tips aimed at helping you produce mobile content that’s user-friendly. Got any questions or want to find out more? Complete the contact form or email sanina@skcopyco.com. In the meantime, discover the benefits of blogging by reading ‘The business case for blogging.’