This post is part of the Guest Blog Grand Tour over at Life Without Pants – an epic journey of over 75 guest posts. Want to learn more about Matt Cheuvront & see how far the rabbit hole goes? Subscribe to the Life Without Pants RSS feed & follow him on Twitter to keep in touch!
If you’re an avid reader of my blog…wait, you’re not reading it yet? What are you waiting for?
Ehem, anyway, if you’re an avid reader of my blog you know that I am not a man of few words – in fact – if there’s one thing I continue to work on as a writer, it’s condensing my long winded thoughts into concise, easy to digest ideas. Because when it comes to writing, sometimes less is truly more.
Seth Godin, Carlos Miceli, & Tim Jahn are three guys I admire for their ability to say a lot without saying a lot. They represent a ‘big picture’ concept that a lot of bloggers and businesses neglect. They’re able to get their message across without clutter – they cut through the noise and get to the point. When you get wordy, when you throw a lot of messages and signals at someone, you run the risk of losing them in translation.
I’m a freelance web designer myself – and there are three things I always tell the clients I work with who are building their website or blog.
Your calls to action must be obvious
If I want to subscribe to your blog, send you an email, or buy your product. I don’t want to figure out how to do it; I just want to do it. Make sure it’s easy for your visitors to do what you want them to.
Provide easy navigation
Again, this goes along the same lines as creating clear calls to action – your page navigation needs to be clear and consistent. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs that is easy for your visitors to follow and navigate through.
Define your takeaways
On each page of your site, there needs to be a clear takeaway – whether it’s simply to read and comment on a blog post, subscribe to a newsletter, or sign up for a service – you need to define a purpose for every single page of your website – and make that purpose easy to define for your visitors.
You don’t hold your breath all the time. Sometimes a grandiose 1000 word blog post is in the cards – but never underestimate the power a few impactful words can have. Sometimes, in fact, often-times, less truly can be more. There is beauty in simplicity.