People read words differently online than they do when reading printed materials. For example, instead of reading left to right and line-by-line, website users scan the page looking for phrases or keywords that catch their attention.
As web users, why do we do this? Usually, we’re on a mission to answer a question we have. We don’t have the time (or patience) to read more than necessary. And frankly, we also know that we don’t have to.
Most of the time, we’re not interested in the entire page of content and are only looking for the sections that pertain to our interests. This is most relevant to informational sections of your website such as your services pages, “about us,” industries you serve, and contact pages. This is less relevant for longer-form content like articles, white papers, or blog posts.
In fact, an online study by Jakob Nielson about reading behavior found that, on average, web users read just 28 percent of the words on a page.
So, what can professional services firms do to make their website copy user-friendly? Most importantly, format web copy to support user scanning. If we know users spend most of their time scanning text in search of something, then how you format your text can make a big difference.
