This is the third in a series of WWWD Tips on how to design a better website. You can also read it at http://www.forministry.com/webbuilder/tips.dsp.
Check out the first two in the series:
Introduction
What is your website saying?
Now that you've made it through some of the basics of web design and setting up your website, here's where you get down to the foundation... how will you craft the words and sentences on your website to express your ministry's visions and purposes?
Pictures, designs, and layout choices will help your website look great, but text will give it a foundation of information and understanding. Too much unnecessary information will cause confusion and lack of interest, just as too little will bring questions and wonder. Take the time to decide what you want to say and how you will say it.
Here are a few tips to get you going.
Keep it Concise
The average visitor to your website will not take the time to read every single word. Most Internet users will surf and scan pages and look for linked and/or bold text.
- Don't mistake being concise with leaving out important material. Of course you want to include every detail that is crucial to your website. But you have plenty of space to use, not everything needs to be on the first page of your website.
- Leave the home page relatively "text-light" (not a lot of text and information). Use other pages (and the teaser option described below) to keep the details on the home page down to a minimum.
Keep it Clean
Blocks of text (paragraphs with no line breaks) on websites can be cumbersome and hard to read. Of course, there are places for extended areas of text such as articles, outlines, etc.
- Keep paragraphs short.
- Use strategically placed bullets and bold fonts so your audience can quickly get to the important points.
- For long sections of text, use teasers to point to the main body of work.
The teaser option is a display tool that that can be used in any text item on your ForMinistry website. You can display a short teaser that will link to the main portion of text that will appear on a new screen. To use the teaser:
- Click on Text next to Add item here (if it's an existing item, just click on Edit This Text)
- When the text editing window appears, add main body of text in the large text area.
- In the teaser text area (below the main text), add a short teaser (for example, "If you missed last weeks sermon, you can check it out here."
- (Optional) Scroll down to Teaser Display Options, and make changes.
- When finished, click on Save and Update.
- When your page refreshes, click on Options in the text item you wish to update with a teaser.
- Click on Display teaser in the menu box. The page will refresh with the teaser shown.
For more information about text and teasers, check out the Quickhelp site section on Text.
Keep it Connected
Lastly, make sure that there is a flow to each page of your website. Keep related information together, format your text so that it's clear which items are main headings, highlighted items, important details, etc.
The formatting and layout of your Web site's pages should be relatively similar as well. This helps viewers know where they are, and how to get from one page to the other. Use text to be a guide.
Design away!
