Why do content providers waste hours and hours honing and styling the text of an article when readers are unable to find the article due to poor navigation!
As online editors, we can keep our finger on exactly how effective our communication is proving. Site statistics and server logs can reveal how ‘well thumbed’ an article is and whether readers are successfully finding the links that have been provided.
An editor needs to regularly review navigation and content to ensure it matches expectations.
Perhaps it is crucial that some text must be read by a specific target audience. To achieve this, copy testing may be necessary. By varying and fine-tuning the headlines, summaries, navigation and content structures it is often possible to improve response and feedback.
The subtlest change - just a single word in a headline or link - can result in a healthy boost in response. So there are times when we need to adopt the thoroughness and ingenuity of advertising copywriters to achieve our goals.
An editor needs to regularly review navigation and content to ensure it matches expectations.
Feedback- the lifeblood of the web
Online writers need to recognise the importance of feedback and take full advantage of it. Emails responding to features or straw polls can subsequently be incorporated into published material – adding value to the original text.
Editors are no longer working in a vacuum, response may follow seconds from a page going live.
Unlike a printed publication that is finished and almost forgotten once it has gone the printers - the web is a living breathing medium and needs to be constantly monitored and cosseted.
There are times when feedback can be exhilarating and motivating – but also times when it can be depressingly soul-destroying! But at least errors hopefully can be corrected briskly, without waiting for the next printed publication!