People do not read web pages like they read print text so Web Page Content Editing enhances pages through a number of functions:
- It enables pages to be 'skim-read' or scanned, the way most visitors read web pages. Approriate keywords that reflect the essence of a text passage are chosen and distributed throughout that passage.
- The entire page is summarized in the first paragraph so that visitors know immediately whether to read on.
- The entire text is precised and reduced to increase read time and decrease download time.
- The text is laid out with frequent descriptive headings to break it up.
- The first paragraph summary and the addition of keywords enables search engines to index the page very easily.
- The text structure is modified to remove ambiguous grammar and words that may be confusing to second-language English visitors.
We recommend that all key pages be edited in this way. If a long document requires inclusion, there should be a summary page with a link to the full document.
As an exact reverse of print media such as newspapers, studies have shown that web users almost always look at text before they look at an image. If your site consists largely of text, content editing should be considered seriously.
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