On making your content neat and tidy
If your content is in disorder, it is really boring and might scare your visitors away. Here below are some useful guidances to improve your content in neatness.
Recognize your visitor
There are usually two types of internet users. The first type of users knows what they are looking for and they arrive at your site with a purpose. They can be easily satisfied if you make information searching in your site as simple and quickly as possible. The second type of users arrive at your site without wanting to achieve anything, i.e. they just happened to stumble upon your site while surfing the internet. Majority of the internet users belong to the second category. If you want to sell something to them, you need to make them stay and listen to you which require more effort. The uncluttering of your web site depends upon what kind of visitors you aim at.
Importance of the cursor
Changing the mouse arrow head into a pointing finger or something else helps the visitor to identify a clickable link. Rollover effects such as changing the font effects, background image or color when mouse over also help to differentiate between texts and links. The mouse cursor has the ability to change its appearance as it passes over important areas of the screen.
Use a standard Header
Using a standard header on all your web pages gives your site a consistent look which is considered as a positive thing in Web Design. Since the header catches the most attention, many webmasters love to throw in tunes of graphics and the information in it, making it looks really bulky. It is not an attractive thing. We want our visitors to stay in our site longer, so the emphasis should be on the content not the header. A typical example is the use of Google Ad words in the header. Most websites are designed to have a standard header (banner) and footer. Some web site owners have Google and Alexa Toolbars installed. Some even have other types of toolbars. Header should be short. If the header takes up too much space, your visitors cannot read your content without scrolling.
Categorize your Content
Gather all related information into their respective categories. When the user enters the category page, provide summaries of different ideas in just a few sentences with links to the extended versions. Thus the user can browse and read what they want by clicking on the appropriate links. In fact, many portals such as MSN, BBC, and CNN are designed in that way.
Shorter the text into pages
Make the length of the body to a minimum to prevent content clutter. It is the direct way to keep letting the readers see the whole page without scrolling. It motivates them to read the whole text. Make them into different pages if you have a lot of things to tell. If you look at the articles in devised website, you will see that all the long articles are split up into different sections.
Use the images properly
An image also leaves a more lasting impression on us because our eye is more easily drawn to familiar pictures rather than words. Images break up the monotonous text. Numerous studies show that most people are more likely to read a story if there is an image accompanying the story. However, if your site is full of images, then the text can break up the monotonous images. Take care that you have to keep the file size as small as possible without losing the image quality so that it will not affect the speed of browsing.
Use of negative space
Like images, negative space provides breathing space for the eye. Intelligent use of negative space is the key to unclutter a website in to a cluttered environment. Negative space is intentionally left space. An empty space might not seem interesting but it provides a good boundary for different blocks of ideas. A typical example is the use of new paragraphs. Visitors will be confused if you join all your ideas into one big chunk of text. Negative space also creates a good contrast for the text. Contrast helps to show the connection between design elements and establishes the flow of story or directs the eye to important areas of the web page. Most of the blogs today are designed with a lot of negative space because they have a lot of text. Too much space makes your site looks really empty and bored.
Only the demanded information
Provide according to the preference of the visitor is another way to reduce clutter. Unimportant or inappropriate information can be filtered off by setting up a preference area. Here the user is questioned about specific needs or interests. Once the information is recorded, there can be a script setup to display only the areas or topics that are important to that viewer. Many soft wares nowadays offer wizard utilities whereby the user arrives at what they want by answering some simple questions. The same concept could be applied to web design. For example, if you are running an ecommerce site, instead of showing all your products to your viewer at once, you could ask them a few simple questions, narrowing down and displaying only the product information that the viewer might be interested. This technique is implemented in many web hosting sites.
Conclusion
You can display your content with the emphasis on content in Search Engine Optimization so that it may not bore the visitor. If you can make your readers happy, they will return to your website or even use your services.
