How to Write Web Microcontent—Headlines, Decks, Buttons and Links—That Get the Word Out

By Ann Wylie

Little things mean a lot, especially online. Microcontent—or the headlines, decks, subheads and other small pieces of Web copy—actually do most of the communicating on your Web site. Handled poorly, microcontent can confuse and frustrate Web visitors. Here’s how to write microcontent to communicate to--instead of discombobulate—your readers.

What Is Microcontent?

Microcontent is a Web page’s presentation copy. It gives readers an overview of what the page is about. Microcontent includes:

• Page titles
• Taglines
• Indexes and tables of contents
• Navigation bars, buttons, links
• Headlines
• Decks or the one-sentence summary that follows the headline
• Subheads
• Bullets
• Boldfaced lead-ins
• Highlighted text

Microcontent Helps Readers:

1. Search, find and save. Have you ever received a search result that read like gobbledygook? Do you have any bookmarks that say: “Welcome to XYZ Corporation”?—or worse, “Untitled Page”? Have you ever tried to figure out which link to click in an index listing “Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3?” If so, you’ve been a victim of poorly written microcontent.
   
   Microcontent is likely to get picked up, listed and linked. Your page title, for example, will show up in search results and bookmarks. And your headlines may be listed in indexes. That means these elements must be clear regardless of whether the reader sees them within the context of the rest of the Web page or on their own.
   
   
2. Choose. Online communication doesn't offer the same kind of visual cues about a story’s significance—placement, headline and length, for example—as print communication does. Instead, online readers must rely primarily on the topic and placement in an index. That makes the words you choose particularly important.
   
   
3. Scan. Because reading online is so onerous, readers are more likely to scan than read. Good headlines, decks, subheads, bullets and boldfaced lead-ins make it easy for readers to get the gist of the story without reading the text.

Good Microcontent Should Be:

• Short. (That’s why they call it microcontent.) Readers need to understand microcontent at a glance. Make it as tight as you can without sacrificing clarity. That means, for instance, limiting headlines to eight words and decks to 14 words.
  
  
• Explanatory. I love clever, cryptic headlines in print. But they don't work online.

One huge telecom company’s Web site, for instance, features such links as “Openness—-the road to success” (a conference), “A sign of attitude” (cool phones) and “Change your perspectives” (jobs for IT folks.) If you're writing about conferences, phones and jobs, those words should appear in the microcontent. The point here is to communicate, not to intrigue. So strive for clarity instead of creativity.

• Scannable. Online, readers don’t read, they scan. Microcontent should make it easy for readers to get the gist of the page by scanning. Give it the skim test: have a colleague read just the microcontent—-the headlines, decks, subheads, bullets, buttons and links—of one of your Web pages. She or he should be able to understand the key points without reading the text.
  
  
• Context-free. Can readers understand your headlines and page titles without the text, illustrations and supporting microcontent? If your headline says, “On the move,” readers might not be able to figure out whether this is a page about employee promotions, a piece on your company’s relocation benefits or an article about your new headquarters. If they can’t understand, chances are, they won’t click. Good microcontent is easy to understand no matter where it shows up, in or out of context.
  
  
• List-ready. Indexes and other lists are often alphabetical, so skip leading articles such as “an” and “the” unless you want your piece to be listed under “A” or “T.” Make the first word a potential search word to help readers scan for what they seek. So instead of: “How to Manage the Approval Process,” try “Approval Process: How to Manage the Review System.” Also, move company and publication names toward the end of the headline or page title. So “Invest Online … at H&R Block,” not “H&R Block Online Investing.”
  
  
• Limited. “Pages with too many microcontent elements are like a busy intersection with too many road signs,” writes Amy Gahran, editor of the Web-zine Contentious. Don’t overload your page with too many directions. Instead, Gahran suggests, limit microcontent to no more than five or six sections a page and no more than three to four emphasized items (links, boldface lead-ins, etc.) per section.

© 2004 PR Tactics. Reprinted with permission from the Public Relations Society of America, www.prsa.org

To learn more about effective writing, consider these AMA seminars:

• Effective E-mail Marketing
• AMA’s 2-day Business Writing Workshop

Author Bio: Ann Wylie presents in-house training programs for public relations professionals. For more information: http://wyliecomm.com/. To subscribe to Ann’s free e-mail newsletter: ann@WylieComm.com.