Research shows that on average a reader will only read around 20% of the text on a page. The way you structure your content can influence how your readers perceive, use and understand your message.
How people read online
People read differently online to paper. Most online readers scan content quickly to find the information they want.
Usually they will look along the top of the page, then down the left hand side. When they find information they are interested in they’ll read across. This pattern ends up looking like a capital “F”.
However, this means if readers are unable to easily scan your content, they’ll move on.
This is true for all types of online content, including documents and emails.
For more information, try the LinkedIn learning course: learning to write for the web.
Reading order
The reading order of your document or webpage should be logical and make sense to the reader.
Think of your content as a set of instructions to reach an end goal.
For example: you would not explain to readers how to buy from an agreement without first telling them what the agreement is for.
The inverted pyramid
You must put the most important information in the first couple of paragraphs. This is called front loading your content and helps to ensure that most readers will get the main information. This is because only a small percent of users make it to the bottom of a page.
The inverted pyramid structure is:
- Most important information.
- Important details.
- Other general or background information.
Page length
There is no minimum or maximum page length for. However, you should remember that:
- people only tend to read about 20% of text on a web page
- cognitive overload increases for every 100 words on a page, which means every additional 100 words reduces a reader’s ability to understand
- you should only include what someone needs to know to complete their task: nothing more
The quicker you make your point, the greater the chance that your target audience will see the information you need them to.