Y’a’right guys, we’ve got an absolute banger of a blog for you today. Honestly, you’re not gonna wanna miss it. We’ve got three reasons why the text on your site is super important, and why you should totally be aware of how to format the words you use, too.
Hopefully I didn’t lose you there.
I would understand if reading that first paragraph made you want to leave. Because that is exactly what could happen on your website if you fail to tailor your language to your target audience.
Luckily, I’m going to show you the three mistakes you might make in this regard, and how to get them right.
1. Tone
Apart from the contractions “Y’a’right” and “wanna”, that first paragraph you just read doesn’t have spelling mistakes or use non-standard English, yet it feels wrong.
When it comes to copy, whether on your website or in print media, readers will notice typos and obscure language. Whether it’s the misspelling of “receive” or questioning why you used the word “Brobdingnagian” (Gulliver’s Travels, anyone?), these are noticed quite easily. But the flow of language sometimes goes amiss, and colloquial words may fly under the radar.
I remember when I was doing my A-levels that my psychology teacher was adamant about the language we used when writing our essays, especially when it came to children and their development. The reason for this? A single word.
In the previous year, he saw a student fail because an essay they wrote included the word “mardy”. If you’re from Nottinghamshire, you’ll know what the student was saying when they used sentences such as “Researchers found that the child was mardy after exposure to the stimulants”.
But the people marking the essay in London had never heard the word before. They didn’t know it was synonymous with “agitated and unruly”. So how could they mark this student’s work highly, when mardy could well have meant “calm and collected”?
Sometimes, much like myself with the word mardy, until someone tells you, you don’t know that a word or turn of phrase is regional. We all know that describing a bread-like item into which one may put a burger will likely give away where you grew up/where you live – it’s “cob” by the way, and I will not be taking questions at this point in time. But we don’t always consider the lesser-known words.
The lesson is simple: use plain English that everyone will understand.
2. Typography
ℐ𝒻 𝓎ℴ𝓊 𝒶𝓇ℯ ℴ𝓁𝒹ℯ𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃 ℐ 𝒶𝓂, 𝓉𝒽ℯ𝓃 𝒸𝓊𝓇𝓈𝒾𝓋ℯ 𝓅𝓇ℴ𝒷𝒶𝒷𝓁𝓎 𝒾𝓈𝓃’𝓉 𝓉ℴℴ 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝒻ℴ𝓇 𝓎ℴ𝓊 𝓉ℴ 𝓇ℯ𝒶𝒹. ℬ𝓊𝓉 𝓎ℴ𝓊𝓃ℊ 𝓅ℯℴ𝓅𝓁ℯ 𝒹ℴ𝓃’𝓉 𝓇ℯ𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝓊𝓈ℯ 𝒸𝓊𝓇𝓈𝒾𝓋ℯ 𝓃ℴ𝓌𝒶𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈, 𝓃ℴ𝓇 𝓈𝒽ℴ𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝒾𝓉 𝒷ℯ ℯ𝓍𝓅ℯ𝒸𝓉ℯ𝒹 – ℯ𝓈𝓅ℯ𝒸𝒾𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝒶𝓈 𝓉𝒽ℯ 𝓂𝒶𝒿ℴ𝓇𝒾𝓉𝓎 ℴ𝒻 𝓉ℯ𝓍𝓉 𝓉𝒽ℯ𝓎 𝒾𝓃𝓉ℯ𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝒾𝓈 𝓉𝓎𝓅ℯ𝒹, 𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒽ℯ𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃 𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝓉ℯ𝓃.
At best, the use of cursive could make your business look dated. But at worst, you could be using a typeface that makes it impossible for some people to read it at all.
Unfortunately, it’s not just about the font you choose either. Even the same font can be perceived differently depending on how you implement it.
LARGE TEXT IN CAPITAL LETTERS WILL FEEL LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING TO THE READER. THIS CAN BE VERY OFF-PUTTING TO SOME PEOPLE, AND SHOULD REALISTICALLY BE USED IN HEADERS ONLY.
Whereas smaller text can be harder to read, and requires more action on the user’s part as they have to squint or zoom in to be able to see what you’re trying to say.
Neither option with text size is ideal, which is why you want to reach a healthy middle ground.
It is quite easy to not give much thought to font style or size when it comes to your website, especially if you don’t have a brand-specific font.
If you use Calibri in your Word documents, Arial in your emails, and Open Sans on your website, what does it matter? They’re all sans-serif fonts, right?
Wrong!
The font you use can be a great way to subtly show what type of business you run.
Recently, we had to change a font on a client’s website due to a licensing issue with the one they were using. When the designer for the website had to find an alternative, they were a little sad that the font needed to change, as the previous one had “little flourishes” which made the text stand out more from being just another sans-serif font.
It is very easy to use a font you’ve used before or have seen elsewhere. My go-to when designing a website tends to be Poppins, but I have to stop and say, “Is this really the best font for the job?”.
The answer is almost always “no”.
There are so many fonts out there, all with a different feel to them, and each can drastically change not just how the text looks, but how it is perceived.
It’s worth thinking about that when choosing the font for your website or anywhere else your clients might encounter you.
3. The amount of text you use, and the layout of it, can really make or break how it looks on a page and should really be considered both in how you write it and how you read it
Phew, what a title.
What was the writer thinking when they wrote that?
It’s not short, and it’s certainly not sweet!
Whether it’s long titles, short paragraphs, or text split into columns at an odd point, the way the text is displayed has a huge impact on how a user will interact with your website.
Take a fees page as an example. A potential client will want to know how much your advice will cost. As such, they are likely to go to the fees page and look for a section which screams to them, “This is how much it will cost”.
Titles are your quick references on a page, and should be used to guide a user to the information they may be looking for, just as much as they help break up the content on the page.
So, if your potential client sees a title such as “How we charge” as they scan the page, they will know they have found what they are looking for, and stop to read the following text in more detail.
Now imagine that title as “The figures below cover the average cost to our clients over a year of working with us”. Not only is it a bit of a mouthful, but it isn’t clear or concise, and potential clients could easily skip over it as they scroll through the page looking for information quickly.
A similar case can be made for using paragraph breaks or columns as if they were a longer pause in your general speech.
The more paragraphs you use for a single point, the more it makes everything seem disjointed.
And the more disjointed the points become, the harder it is to follow along with the initial point.
And the harder it is to follow along, the more likely a user will forget the initial point.
That isn’t to say there is a perfect sentence length, or that variation is bad. The key is to think about how information is displayed, not just how useful that information is to the reader.
Work with the experts to help you get it right
Overall, the most important thing is a combination of all of the above points: make the text on your website as easy to digest as possible.
Use an easily readable font, with words that ideally everyone will understand, in a layout that doesn’t confuse the reader. Altogether, this will make your website much easier for a user to engage with, find what they are looking for, and, if they’re the right fit for you, want to get in touch.
If you are looking for a word wizard to turn your website up to 11 with concise and easy-to-digest content, get in touch with the experts at Yardstick.
Email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300 to find out more.
