Importance of Website Content

I say this for many reasons. First, the marketing paradigm for using visual impact is inverted on the web. I've written about this dynamic many times over the years, but it merits reiteration. Offline, image and visual impact is necessary in order to grab attention. You must win attention before you have the opportunity to say anything. In these situations, visuals often trump words. Some of the best ad campaigns have little or no words in them at all. Where brand reinforcement is the objective, an image of an athlete with a "swoosh" can do the job nicely. However, on the web there is literally no "stop and grab attention" work to be done at all. People don't walk past websites or have websites presented to them in between television shows. They choose to go to a website based on an interest of some kind. They type in a URL, choose a bookmark or click on a link. The design of the site has no role whatsoever in their choosing to click on a link. This is not to say that design and images are unimportant; once they do click, site's looks fills the same important role it does in a brochure, annual report or billboard. But the initial attention-grabbing part of the equation is removed.

Another reason for the elevated priority of words on the web is the expectation of why people go to a website. Except for a very small percentage of ubiquitous brand sites like Coke, McDonald's or Nike, or sites where the purpose is highly entertainment-oriented, most websites get traffic from people in search of information. Such information may very well include pictures, like maps on MapQuest, but usually the information is contained in the words of the site.


Suppose you want to find out how many square feet are in an acre. How might you go about finding out on the web? Most people would Google it. If you're a real estate agent, it's a good idea to have an FAQ on your website that gives the square footage of an acre and perhaps some description of how large an acre is, say in comparison to a football field. When someone does a Google search they might find your page and get to your site, thereby finding the information they were looking for. Words make the web work. Another case is in how people look for specific information on a particular site using search functions. If you wanted to find out if a certain accessory is available for your MP3 player, you might go to BestBuy.com and search for iPod accessories using their site's search tools.

Theoretically, in both of these cases, the information could have been presented visually. The acre could have been presented as an image showing a square imposed over a graphic of a football field representing the relative size of an acre. Or the accessories page could visually display all the available iPod accessories. If this were the case however, you would not have found the acre page from Google or the desired accessory on BestBuy. That's because words make the web work.

In both these cases pictures would definitely add to the richness of the information, but without the words the information would be hidden.   next >