Writing for the web

No, this isn't a post about writing articles for the web, like this one I wrote a while back. I'm talking about writing for a website. If you look back at the first version of SportsLizard you'd see an incredible amount of text explaining everything. Hell, this "current" version from about a year and a half ago still has confusing pages like this one about selling a collectible (note all the asterisks and special scenarios).

Here's the deal when it comes to writing on your site: PEOPLE DON'T READ, THEY ACT. I'm obviously not talking about a blog, I'm referring to an e-commerce site, a search engine, web software, etc. Look at Google, the most influential site of our time. It's a freaking web form with a search button that anyone who's known HTML for a week could program. It's great because it's simple and functional. I'm guessing that their conversion rate of getting someone to search (the goal of that page) is probably well over 90%.

I have a new goal as I'm developing this new SportsLizard - write as little as possible. That forces me to make the site intuitive to use. Web usability is a fascinating topic - what makes people click away from your site and why? There have been several good studies on the topic, and the book Call to Action is a great read, but in most cases there are no answers except trial and error because every site/market/visitor is uniquely different.

That said, there's one universal truth that always seems to pop up - throwing too much at your visitors is a bad thing. Whether it's too much text or a navigation menu of 50 choices, the user is less likely to follow the path you want them to take (to make a sale or sign up for a subscription or whatever the goal of your site is) and more likely to either click away or follow a confusing and frustrating non-linear path through your site looking for something that should be simple to find.