The internet is growing, and the contents inside it are piling up. Competing to be seen, most visitors of a website won't read all of your contents and tend to settle on answers.
The reason for this is because quick and expected answers to their questions will eliminate their time spent aimlessly. And that is web visitors' main source of satisfaction.
Each web users has different habits. The amount of time they're willing to sacrifice while visiting a website varies widely, and depends heavily on the circumstances they're having. Some people are keen on reading the headline topics and the very first few paragraphs. Others are more into the conclusion and typing inside the comment box. Some others do read them whole, while the rest either share your content without even reading it, or just leave without doing anything, adding up to your bounce rate.
As a webmaster/web owner, it's your responsibility to address their needs by solving their questions with the contents you have. But since people can be unpredictable, addressing people individually can be difficult.
Meaningful Contents With Answers
People browse the web, jump from one link to another, type queries on search engines, and do some other things to get answers to their questions. When landing on a web page, the first thing they do is glance at everything as a whole. The design catches the eyes first, followed by the layout, then the headline, then the content.
When web designers fine-tune the website they're creating to enhance the site's overall contents. Content marketers and writers should settle on a "good-enough" answer as a way to deliver their contents.
This type of approach do eliminate some critical points on creating a compelling and interesting article. But sacrificing those points is one of the ways to provide "quick answer" to visitors' related problems. This in turn will make them stick around for a longer period.
Sacrificing details here is to make web visitors settle on the best answers they're expecting. Meeting their essential needs by giving quick answers may not be the best choice for some websites, but to most, this can be an approach to attract more web visitors.
Understanding Web Visitors' Behavior
How often people are using the web is determined by their needs for online and fast information. Because of the sheer number of information the web has in its disposal, it's often impossible for most people to compare every provided information to get into their conclusion.
People may spend their time online just to search for a great vacation spot, for example. But with the many services and information on the web, they may not even go to their vacation at all. The reason for this can be caused by their inability to get the "answer" they need.
Many people use the web to do thorough comparison of things. The effort to get the "perfect answer" is time consuming, and people just don't have enough time to justify and research.
Sacrificing some of your content's details and go forward with actual answers, can change this.
The reason for this is because sacrificing some details can deliver the visitors' most expected answers, quickly and easily. This strategy will allow users to have more time in deciding, giving them more control and flexibility of their decision.
Quick And Easy Road To Answers
On the internet, a single question can have multiple answers scattered all over the web. As a webmaster/web owner that have the answer, should be able to deliver it without giving users much of a hassle.
Web visitors may have conducted many research through online and offline, aiming to get the perfect answers. If you think that your website has the answer to a specific problem, you should be able to give them without interaction costs by decreasing the steps the user must take to get there.
To deliver quick and easy answers, you have to trade things from your website off. But since the cost for users to get to the answer is lowered, the sacrifice you made will add benefit to them because they're expecting answers, not explanations.
With a website well-designed and contents easy to reach, you will be able to create an invisible guideline people can follow. And by ensuring that people are getting quick answers with your short but informative content, user satisfaction can be guaranteed.
Writing For The Eyes To Skim
When web visitor first landed on a page, their eyes scan and skim the whole page, catching the bits of information they find interesting. These all happen within fractions of a second to a few seconds at most. During this time, the visitor will conclude whether they want to stay or just leave the page to wander off.
People don't usually like to spend time on a web page reading every single word it has to say. Because people are just scanning the content, they're actually sacrificing information to get to the quick answers. What they want is answers, asnwered in a relatively small number of time.
The principle to attract these types of readers is to include descriptive titles and inverted-pyramid structure. This will help visitors in extracting all possible information as quickly as possible, and getting them to the answer they were expecting.
It's always great to provide rich and detailed information. But if your aim is getting visitors and making them stay, attracting people with quick answers is one of the very best solution available.
Conclusion
Every single page on your website should have a purpose. And to the pages that are critical, they must give sufficient information so people can understand the scope of its offerings.
Your website should indeed be well-designed. But a well-designed website that isn't having good-quality content won't go anywhere popular and won't have the traffic it needs to survive. Occasionally sacrificing some details in your high-quality content, could create a content that is attractive in its own way.