Content and information overload

For the best user experience it helps to not overwhelm your visitor with too many things going on on your site’s pages.

Some site owners feel the need to fill the home page and other pages with as much as they can – so that the visitor has all the information they could want, and any promotions, sign-up forms etc. are visible too.

When the mind has too many options and possible decisions…it often says, “No” and makes no decision at all. So just don’t bombard the visitor with too much, confusing, overwhelming stuff.

Instead, ‘draw’ people deeper into your site… Have clear menus, and very few high tier options on a page, that link to more in-depth details.

Then, on deeper pages, use a good balance of not too much and not too little. Have the most important information or primary content highly visible, then make the rest of your page a comfortable read/view.

Remember the shorter attention spans of today’s average consumer. You need to get to the main point, be clear and concise, and make their next move or decision simple and obvious.

Never make paragraphs of text longer than a few sentences. On any kind of computer screen, short paragraphs are always best on the eye, unlike big blocks of text that tire the reader.

If your page contains memory-hungry media such as self-hosted videos, or images that were uploaded at a high resolution etc., it slows the page loading time – resulting in visitor frustration and search engines not ranking you as well as they could.

Also, regarding search engines, they’ve evolved so that they prefer quality over quantity. Search engines no longer focus on keywords alone, so stuffing pages with endless text isn’t the best idea. Search engines look at how well your content answers the questions raised by online users.

If your website’s pages are very busy and you’re trying to present as much info or content as you can for the visitor – consider cutting things back. Make your site a comfortable journey through its pages, rather than trying to force the visitor to consume everything at once.