This week on Whiteboard Friday we're looking at visualization. Not the Tony Robbins, Zig Ziggler, positive thinking kind, but rather how to make your web content attractive to users.

People on the web consume tons of information everyday, so their time is limited. A surefire way to turn people off is with a long page of text with nothing to break it up. Even if the content is stellar, some visitors are likely to assume it will take too long to get through, or it will be too dry for them to enjoy.  The solution? Add some visuals. Charts, graphs, related pictures, etc. Break up your content and provide clues to what's covered in the article. This makes it easy for visitors to get a quick overview as well as a deeper understanding while they're reading.

An info-graphic summarizing a detailed story about wetlands

While USA Today gets a lot of flack for being all info-graphics, all the time, there's a reason it's the number one newspaper in the US: it's easy to digest for people who need some news but don't have time to read the whole paper.  Visual cues can help create expectations and inform passive readers, which will make them more likely to engage with your content. And remember: engaged readers link 1,266%* more often than non-engaged readers. Watch the video and learn how you can add some more pizazz to your content.

As Rand mentions at the end, our gone but not forgotten colleague, Rebecca Kelley, is now working with the crew over at 10e20 (some of my favorite people in search). If you've been missing her, you can check her out in all of her majestic bloginess on the 10e20 Blog.


*This statistic is completely made-up