By Nan Fritz, President, nSight

"I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short," wrote the French mathematician Blaise Pascal about 350 years ago.

Surf the Net today and you're likely to find that Pascal's words accurately describe many Web sites. The culprits of online overload range from dense, jargon-filled copy, to non-intuitive interfaces and site maps, to slow-loading, often irrelevant video and graphics.

With the average surfer taking all of two seconds to make a "stay or leave" decision, and 80% of all users failing to return to a site after the first visit, Web writers, designers, and corporations need to deliver what an end user wants…fast.

So what's the best way to create "stickiness" when end users are only a mouse click away from leaving your Web site?

Content is King
Whether an individual wants to make an online purchase, find the latest sports scores, or conduct research, he is, in essence, looking for one thing: content.

In fact, the search and exchange of content can be said to be the raison d'être of the Internet. While this may seem obvious, many developers and companies have lost sight of this, having been seduced by flashy technology.

Creating meaningful Web content starts with determining who the different types of visitors are; what they want from a visit; what you want them to do while they are at the site; and what you want them to do once they leave it. Once this upfront analysis is done, you can determine how to get content before the user as quickly and easily as possible.

That means that audio, graphics, and video, instead of serving as "eye candy" or "window dressing," must be thought of as content, and be used to enhance and reinforce key messages and business objectives.

As to the Adjective: When in doubt, strike it out.
Although one of the great virtues of the Web is that it supports multimedia, the primary mode of communicating information online is still the written word. Writing for the Web, however, is an art unto itself.

Since Web surfers typically do not read long blocks of text, content needs to be parsed in a way that lets the reader quickly determine what is relevant to him. Bullet points, headers for paragraphs, and breaking up copy by topic are effective devices by which this can be accomplished.

Translated into writing style, successful Web copy:

• Is pithy
• Employs a journalistic tone
• Is written in the present tense
• Uses lots of action verbs and commonly understood words

Good Web writing is carefully copyedited and free from grammatical and factual errors. While this may seem obvious, mistakes of this nature abound on popular Web sites.

Effective sites also use meta-tags, hidden HTML tags designed to increase search engine effectiveness, to make important content resources show up at the top of both site-specific and public search engines. Content should also be published in the appropriate area of the Web site, and be accessible through numerous hyperlinks.

But writing for the Web is more than a question of style and links: it is one of philosophy.

If a customer wants information about a product, he usually has a number of ways to find it—calling the company, visiting a showroom, reading a brochure, or using the Internet. When someone chooses to use the Internet, he is searching for information in isolation. The implication of this: that individual is probably a self-directed learner who wants to form his own opinions.

Research bears this out and has revealed that Web users want facts and not hype. To make your Web content successful, keep it objective and balanced.

Looking Ahead
Pundits are now engaged in a heated debate about the future of the Internet—what the impact of new technologies will be; how companies will best be able to leverage it; who the key players will be.

While no one knows what the Internet will look like even a year from now, it's clear that timeless qualities like compelling and concise copy—copy that is easy to read and inspires action—will always be a hallmark of successful sites.