What to Use for Your Website and Blog: Headlines, Sub Headlines, Paragraph Text and Lists

Building a website or blog is a great way to share your ideas and thoughts with the world, start an online business, share your hobby or gain exposure for a non-profit. When it comes to making use of the different styles and tools available for your text, it can be overwhelming. Remember to keep it simple. Start by having a clear idea of what you wish to achieve with your website. This idea or goal should be reflected in your approach to the design, building and layout of your website.

The first thing you need to do is prepare. Collect all the material you wish to put on your website. This includes your written material, photographs, pictures, diagrams, videos, logos, contact details and maps, etc. Once you have all this information prepared, you can easily plot out the basic order of your website. This will include things such as how many pages you will need, which headings to give each page and what content will fill those pages.

If you’re still unsure where to start, consider that a good website must have a homepage, a contact us page and at least one page that defines your product or service offering.

When you are ready to fill your website pages with content, remember to keep it to-the-point, informative and easy to read. Plot out the layout of each of your pages with your visitors and your original intentions in mind.

For text and heading styles, stick to one or two typefaces and two or three type sizes and colors. Try to match the text colors you choose with the rest of your brand colors. Be careful not to match them too closely so that the text is no longer visible. The key point of your content is for your vistitors to be able to read it. Also, stay away from all-caps text for anything other than a heading.

Once you start to fill each of your website pages with your content, remember the following guidelines:

Main Header, or Headline
Your website heading will be the most important line of text – the title of the page. It should be the largest and stand out to the reader. You can use Main Header style to define this text. The heading should be the main summary of that particular pages content.

Second Header, or Sub-headlines
Second Header should represent each main section of your content and should contain vital information you want your readers eyes to see. These are sub-headings that can help break up your content and summarize the paragraph text below. You want the information here to capture their attention so they continue reading and remember what they have read.

Paragraph Text
All your written work to follow these subheadings will be your main text body, which should be divided into paragraphs/sub sections in order to make it easier for the reader. Sometimes less is more. You don’t want to go on too long on each of your website pages, otherwise your reader will lose interest and move on. A good rule of thumb is to have between 250-400 words on each page.

Lists
Where necessary, you should consider breaking up your text further with numbered or bulleted lists. This will help the reader quickly scan the core points of what you offer. And they are a great way to help add in some extra keywords. Remember to always start with a heading and then flesh out your list of things below it. Keep the list clear, orderly and short. No long explanations are necessary.

Many of these principles can be used for writing a blog article as well.

Whenever you want to create your own masterpiece, remember the basics:

• keep it simple
• stick with your initial goal
• be prepared
• use pictures
• have an easy to read layout
• be original

Happy website building!