3 Reasons Short is Better.

I spoke to some amazing Pastors and Ministry Leaders in Raleigh yesterday. It seems that everyone is wondering what content needs to be on a website to attract people to their site. The answer is a bit complicated. But I can tell you one simple thing that will keep people on your website. Guaranteed!

And that’s… edit.

The #1 problem I spot on most websites, is too much text! In fact, the average person only spends around 10 seconds per page. There’s no way for someone to take in that much information in those few seconds. So here’s my advice:

1. Your website is not a brochure. It’s an online solution to provide the material that a person is looking for. No one likes when they get an extremely long answer to a simple question. Keep it short!
2. Your website may not be the solution. Most people make that decision in 3 seconds upon seeing your site. But the good news is, that your site may capture their attention if it’s simple and easy to scan. You do have good content, right!?
3. Your website pages need eye-interrupters. If you must have a lot of copy on a page, remember that most people only look at the headline and/or pictures (and captions). Then decide if someone is only going to spend a few seconds on the rest of the page, what’s the next important thing for them to read? Bold or use • bullets to attract the eye to them.

Keep it short! Twitter is good practice. Editing your thoughts to 140 characters is difficult but rewarding!

PS. Can you imagine if the Bible was tweeted on twitter? A Pastor is editing EVERY CHAPTER of the Bible down to 140 characters (or less) and tweeting it. Follow him here!