You’ll often see website builder adverts from many different companies. While these can be useful to get something up and running, they usually come with strings attached. By using these services, you can become too wedded to one provider, and they are likely to have less flexibility over the long term. Also, they are comparatively expensive when setting up a domain and running hosting yourself. The initial savings could be in the hundreds of pounds a year.

The 3 essentials of building a website

All you need to set up a website is a domain name, hosting and then some information. You don’t initially need to worry about code and a nice design to start with. Once you’ve got something online, you’ll need a template or some coding and design to make it look good - but that’s for later.

When writing for the web, using plain language allows users to find what they need, understand what they have found, and then use it to meet their needs. It should also be actionable, findable, and shareable.

People read differently online than they do when they read print materials - web users typically scan for information. In a study of online reading behaviour, Jakob Nielsen found that:

“on the average webpage, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely”.

People come to your website with a specific task in mind. When developing your site’s content, keep your users’ tasks in mind and write to ensure you are helping them accomplish those tasks. If your website doesn’t help them complete that task, they’ll leave. Conduct market research, perform a task analysis and other types of user research, and analyse metrics to better understand what users are looking to accomplish.

Knowing your users’ top tasks can help you identify:

• Content to feature on your homepage or landing pages
• Page headers and sub headers
• A logical structure to each page’s content

User-Friendly Content

It’s important to target your audience when writing for the web. By knowing who you are writing for, you can write at a level that will be meaningful for them.

Use the words your users use

By using keywords that your users use, you will help them understand the copy and will help optimize it for search engines.

• Use the words your users use.  By using keywords that your users use, you will help them understand the copy and will help optimize it for search engines.
• Chunk your content.  Chunking makes your content more scannable by breaking it into manageable sections.
• Front-load the important information. Use the journalism model of the “inverted pyramid.” Start with the content that is most important to your audience, and then provide additional details.
• Use pronouns. The user is “you.” The organization or government agency is “we.” This creates cleaner sentence structure and more approachable content.
• Use active voice. “The board proposed the legislation” not “The regulation was proposed by the board.”
• Use short sentences and paragraphs. The ideal standard is no more than 20 words per sentence, five sentences per paragraph. Use dashes instead of semi-colons or, better yet, break the sentence into two. It is ok to start a sentence with “and,” “but,” or “or” if it makes things clear and brief.
• Use bullets and numbered lists. Don’t limit yourself to using this for long lists—one sentence and two bullets is easier to read than three sentences.
• Use clear headlines and subheads. Questions, especially those with pronouns, are particularly effective.
• Use images, diagrams, or multimedia to visually represent ideas in the content. Videos and images should reinforce the text on your page.
• Use white space.  Using white space allows you to reduce noise by visually separate information.

There are two schools of thought when designing for mobile devices:

• Creating native applications (apps)
• Producing web content that is responsive (adapts to fit the screen size of the device being used)

There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

The advantages to native content built right into an app are immediately obvious: users download the app once, and they are good to go once installed. No connection? No problem! The app has you covered, so users can check that their children are indeed on holiday until Wednesday, whilst stuck in the signal-less area of their getaway cottage.

Keeping content native also makes it easier for you to control the style and look of the app, keeping the feel consistent and having a more satisfying user journey. There are, however drawbacks.

Native content on apps gets out of date, sometimes all too easily! In the space of days from initial creation of a page, content can already be out of date.

There's also the sheer workload required to upload the content in the first place, and then keeping it up to date. Content that exists on a website already will then have to be updated on the native content: twice the workload.

Developing native applications also requires a greater amount of technical skill, and often cost to register as an app developer.

Many of the disadvantages to native apps are the advantages for a responsive website. Content updated on the website is accessible to all, on any device - there isn't a separate app to update.

There's also nothing extra to learn in addition to your website, as the responsive nature of the site is determined by correct use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Content management systems are often already adapted to provide responsive views, with the majority of the WordPress themes self-adapting to the end user's individual device.