This is the second of a three part series on user experience and its potential to enhance or detract from your brand.  User experience encompasses the total impression that your site makes on a user, including visual appeal, ease of navigation, and overall usability.

In the last article, we discussed the look and feel of your site, otherwise known as your site’s Graphical User Interface (GUI), and how it affects the overall user experience.  Now it’s time to talk about the content that your GUI should be built to showcase.    

Writing for the web is a tricky business.  Web users are a notoriously hard audience to capture.  First, a study performed by Jakob Nielsen indicated that 79% of users don’t read at all on the web—they scan.  Second, web users have a low level of inherent trust in what they read.  The typical web user is either a Baby Boomer who is suspicious of the web as a medium, or a postmodern Generation X or Millenial who tend to be skeptical of all sources of information.  You must build credibility with your audience.  You must be concise and your copy must be tightly targeted. 

Another important thing to remember in regards to your content is the importance of keeping it updated and relevant.  Your website is most effective as a branding and public relations tool when users see it as a valuable source of relevant, topical and newsworthy information regarding your industry.  Implementing a corporate weblog, or blog, can be one way of keeping a steady flow of fresh content available to your site users.  A blog is an online journal written in a more informal, personal tone.  While press releases are a more traditional outlet for this kind of information, typical traffic to the press release section of any website is generally lower than traffic to a corporate blog.  

Another way to provide users with relevant content on your site is to produce informational White Papers and make them available for download.  While users will typically not read lengthy content online, they do respond well if it’s made available as a PDF or Word document download which they can print and read offline at their convenience. 

Always remember that to your users, your site’s success is not based on whether it presents a positive image of your brand, but rather on whether or not it provides them with a positive experience.  Fresh, relevant, user-friendly copy can contribute to that positive experience.  Ultimately, it’s that good user experience which generates buzz and goodwill for your brand.   

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