Structuring your content

How to structure your content so people can read it easily.

Page length

There is no minimum or maximum page length, but keep in mind that:

research shows people only read 20 to 28% of text on a web page (Nielson Norman Group)
pressure on the brain to understand increases for every 100 words you put on a page

This means the quicker you get to the point, the greater the chance your audience will find and understand what you want them to know.

If you write only a single paragraph but it’s full of caveats, jargon and things users do not need to know (but you want to say) then it’s still too much.

Writing body copy

Keep your body copy as focused as possible. If you want their attention, do not waste their time.

You’re likely to be battling outside factors for people’s attention. They might be looking on a mobile on a train, trying to complete their task online in the middle of a stressful family event or any combination of different situations.

Make your content as easy to scan and read as possible. The easier it is to read, the more accessible it will be to more people.

Top tips for writing good body copy

Do not repeat the summary in the first paragraph.
Use the ‘inverted pyramid’ approach with the most important information at the top tapering down to lesser detail.
Break up text with descriptive subheadings. The text should still make sense with the subheadings removed.
Paragraphs should have no more than 5 sentences each.
Includes keywords to boost natural search rankings.

We have more advice on making content readable.

Headings

Headings are important for making content accessible to the widest audience.

Use heading levels (subheadings) to break up your content. Give it a sensible navigation structure.

Each web page title is an H1 (heading level 1), so start at H2 and do not use H1 in your content.

Do not skip heading levels when moving from a higher level to a lower level, for example from H2 to H4. Screen reader users may navigate using a list of headings and a missed heading level can make this confusing.

Do not use bold text instead of using subheadings because screen readers cannot recognise it as a heading.

Make sure your subheadings are front-loaded with search terms and make them active.

Do not use:

questions - they’re hard to front-load (putting the most important information first) and users want answers, not questions
technical terms unless you’ve already explained them
‘introduction’ as your first section – users do not want an introduction, just give the most important information

Read more about creating headings in web content

Do not use FAQs

FAQs are strongly discouraged. If you write content by starting with user needs, you will not need to use FAQs.

FAQs are discouraged because they:

duplicate other content on the site
cannot be front-loaded (putting the most important words people will search for), which makes usability difficult
are usually not frequently asked questions by the public, but important information dumped by the content editor
mean that content is not where people expect to find it; it needs to be in context
can add to search results with duplicate, competing text

Writing with our style guide in mind

It’s important to stick to the style guide.

Be concise

To keep content understandable, concise and relevant, it should be:

specific
informative
clear and concise
brisk but not terse
incisive (friendliness can lead to a lack of precision and unnecessary words) – but remain human (not a faceless machine)
serious but not pompous
emotionless – adjectives can be subjective and make the text sound more emotive and like spin

You should:

use contractions like you’ll (but avoid negative contractions like can’t)
not let caveats dictate unwieldy grammar – for example say ‘You can’ rather than ‘You may be able to’
use the language people are using – use Google Trends to check for terms people search for
not use long sentences – check any sentences with more than 25 words to see if you can split them to make them clearer

Words ending in ‘–ion’ and ‘–ment’ tend to make sentences longer and more complicated than they need to be.

Active voice

Use the active rather than passive voice. This will help us write concise, clear content.

Addressing the user

Address the user as ‘you’ where possible. Content on the site often makes a direct appeal to residents and businesses to get involved or take action, for example ‘You can contact us by phone and email’ or ‘Find your nearest recycling centre’.

Capitalisation

DO NOT USE BLOCK CAPITALS FOR LARGE AMOUNTS OF TEXT. IT’S HARD TO READ.

Date ranges

Use ‘to’ instead of a dash or slash in date ranges. ‘To’ is quicker to read than a dash, and it’s easier for screen readers.

Always explain what your date range represents, for example ‘tax year 2019 to 2020’ or ‘September 2019 to July 2020’. Date ranges can be the academic year, calendar year or tax year. This is why date ranges must be very, very clear.

If you’re comparing statistics from 2 different tax or financial years, use ‘Comparing the financial year ending 2018 with that ending 2019, there was a 9% decrease’.

Gender-neutral text

Make sure text is gender neutral wherever possible. Use ‘them’, ‘their’, ‘they’ etc.

Links

How to add links to content.

Plain English

Plain English is mandatory for all of GOV.UK. One of the parts most people pick up on is the plain English (or words to avoid) list.

This is not just a list of words to avoid. Plain English is the whole ethos of nottinghamshire.gov.uk: it’s a way of writing.

The list is not exhaustive. It’s an indicator to show you the sort of language that confuses users.

Do not use formal or long words when easy or short ones will do. Use ‘buy’ instead of ‘purchase’, ‘help’ instead of ‘assist’, and ‘about’ instead of ‘approximately’.

We also lose trust from people if we use ‘buzzwords’ and jargon. Often, these words are too general and vague and can lead to misinterpretation or empty, meaningless text. We can do without these words.

With all of these words you can generally get rid of them by breaking the term into what you’re actually doing. Be open and specific.

Write conversationally – picture your audience and write as if you were talking to them one-to-one but with the authority of someone who can actively help.

Using ‘please’

There’s usually no need to say ‘please’ or ‘please note’. This includes when giving an instruction or explaining what a user needs to do (for example, please contact us).

When to use ‘we’

In the ‘about us’ section of the organisation page, lead with ‘we’ – it will be very obvious who the ‘we’ is on this page.

In policies, ‘we’ is also used, for example, ‘We announced our intention to do x as part of the y agreement.’

However, it’s not obvious who ‘we’ is in all content. For example, in a publication or detailed guide, users might enter the content in the middle of a page. They could arrive at an H2 heading from the navigation bar on the side, or skim read from the top until they find the section they want.

Each time you use ‘we’, make sure you’ve already used the full name of the department or agency in that specific section. Do not assume the audience will know who the ‘we’ is.