I have discovered over the last year that people don't like to read. I am guilty of this too when I am surfing the web. Most people would prefer to struggle with assembling book shelves and furniture on their own instead of reading the instructions. It is an unfortunate development in this fast-paced world, but it is something that is crucially important for anyone maintaining an eCommerce site to take into consideration. I have compiled a few tips on how to keep your website's visitors interested.
1. Pay Attention to Image Captions and White Space
When visitors arrive at your website, they will usually look at the images first and then move to the text. You can capture your website visitor's attention from the start with brief, descriptive image captions. Many websites do not bother with image captions, so it's an easy way for you to get a small leg-up on your competitors.
Your website visitors are drawn to images and image captions first because they are set apart from the blocky text that makes up much of the website. People are repelled by big chunks of text on a website. Instead, they prefer text that has a lot of white space around it and is generally easier on the eyes to read.
2. Break Up Text into Smaller Parts
Lists, image captions, tables, headers - all of these are just a few ways to break up text into smaller bits.
As famous copywriter Lesley Morrissey states in her blog , you want to make your message clear with as little text as possible and as prominent as possible on your site. For example, if you are selling specialized running shoes on your website, your homepage should get right to the point of how they help runners and why people should buy the shoes.
3. Unlearn the Early Writing Rules Your Grade School Teachers Taught You
Many website owners may be under the false idea that every piece of writing needs a long, recursive "introductory paragraph," as many high school English teachers recommended, and they even docked your grade if you didn't have it in your essay! This is a misguided teaching.
This kind of introductory paragraph does not make anything much clearer and acts more as an obstacle to readers who just want to get to the real issue at hand. It is a lot of description and no real "point." Website owners bring this long held "writing-rule" when they sit down to write content for a website. It spells a certain doom that website visitors will not find the message that you really want to say.
4. Get to the Point!
Don't waste website visitor's time and frustrate their already short attention span. Get right to the heart of your message from the get-go.
It really taxes your brain to consider how you can say your message as quickly and in as few words as possible, but this is what it takes to keep visitors on your site and, hopefully, convince them to buy what you are selling.