{"id":376,"date":"2015-04-27T12:01:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T11:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/?p=376"},"modified":"2015-08-10T09:57:25","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T08:57:25","slug":"how-micro-content-can-immediately-improve-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/2015\/04\/27\/how-micro-content-can-immediately-improve-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"How Micro Content Can Immediately Improve Your Website"},"content":{"rendered":"

Micro content<\/strong> isn\u2019t teeny tiny type on a page – it\u2019s actually the words we put on websites for things like buttons, tabs, menus,<\/strong> even page titles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently we looked at the micro content we used on the 404 error page for the Postgraduate (PG) website.<\/p>\n

Our analytics showed some people who followed a broken link (a deleted page) arrived at this error page and then immediately left the website.<\/p>\n

Okay, so those people didn\u2019t find the page they were looking for, but we follow best practice<\/strong> on our error page. We very politely give helpful links<\/strong> to the search, homepage and sitemap so people can still try to find what they are looking for.<\/p>\n

So why did they leave immediately?<\/p>\n

Review micro content<\/strong><\/p>\n

A quick review of the error page micro content revealed it was perhaps a bit negative:<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>Our loud and proud micro content<\/strong> at the beginning of the page, didn\u2019t encourage people to read further and use the links we had so helpfully provided.<\/p>\n

The page was also a tad long to scan read so we changed it to:<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>By changing the micro content, we also made the error page follow the confident but friendly PG tone of voice<\/strong> the rest of the website uses.<\/p>\n

Testing 1 2 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had several versions of the new error page, and ran these past a few people. The feedback resulted in a mashup of the different versions. Overall it’s a page that everyone felt works better.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Outstanding results<\/strong><\/p>\n

We added Google Analytics<\/strong> to the error page so we could tell if\/when people started using the links instead and staying on the website… we had a brilliant results.<\/strong><\/p>\n

People stayed on the PG website – and six actually went on to start the application process!<\/p>\n

So potentially, six new postgraduate students gained<\/strong> by changing micro content – that’s powerful stuff.<\/p>\n

Take a look at the micro content on your website – is it saying what it needs to in the most effective way<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Have a go! What improvements can you make to your micro content?<\/p>\n

Read more<\/strong><\/p>\n

This short but effective article, The first rule of web design<\/a> by Seth Godin is worth a look. Its about making sure you use the right micro content for actions on your webpages – it certainly makes you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Micro content isn\u2019t teeny tiny type on a page – it\u2019s actually the words we put on websites for things like buttons, tabs, menus, even page titles. Recently we looked at the micro content we used on the 404 error … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[41,35,91,37,26],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-content","tag-content-management","tag-google-analytics","tag-micro-content","tag-user-testing","tag-writing-for-the-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}