In this post, Danilo is going to discuss the finer points of Website formatting relating to usability.

It’s really important to know how to prepare your Web text so it can be easily absorbed by your audience. In fact, formatting your content can have a significant impact on how well people read, respond to, and retain what you have to say. In some ways it can be just as important as the substance of your content.

Font style

Your website needs have a consistent font style (font type, font size, font color, font spacing) across all pages. Changing fonts styles on every page will do little more than confuse your reader. According to studies, 12-point Times New Roman and 10-point Arial result in the fastest reading speeds. That doesn’t mean you can’t use other fonts – generally if the font you want to use is between 10-point and 12-point it should be all right to use. In the case of using an online editor (WYSIWYG), be careful because the more you change your text, the more “dirty” the text will be and may affect your SEO.

Use subheadings

People usually use headings, but rarely subheadings (the one you see above this paragraph). As people tend to scan pages, not read them, it’s very important to divide a long text with short and relevant subheadings. A good example is how Wikipedia’s pages are formatted.

Use bullet points

Presenting information with lists is one of the more effective techniques that will capture your reader’s attention. By put large parts of information in short extracts, listing makes reading and retaining information easy.

Highlighting text

It’s important to highlight words in the text flow if you want to give a different intonation and bring your point closer to the reader. You can make the text strong (HTML tag <strong>) or emphatic (HTML tag <em>). Don’t over-do it though.

In general, keep things tidy and to the point. If you’re looking over your blog or Website at the moment and aren’t sure if it’s easy to read or not, give MaxGen Media a call or email and we can arrange a consultation to give you a hand.

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