Potatoes and the art of streamlined content

These potatoes were something else: each one was perfectly palm sized and they were all smooth as pebbles.

The other day I was peeling potatoes for dinner when I realised something that would forever change my attitude to content design. 

I realised that these potatoes were a joy to peel.

To understand the significance of this, you need to know that I’m categorically not the kind of person who goes around finding pleasure in mundane chores.

The power of less

But these potatoes were something else. Not only was each one perfectly palm sized, they were all smooth as pebbles with none of the knots, gnarls or eyes that normally make potatoes peeling such a pain.

And, crucially, this wasn’t just chance.  

No, at some point, a potato decision maker in the upper echelons of Marks and Spencer’s had thought about me, standing at home after a long day in front of a mountain of potatoes, and decided to make my life easier.

They did that by taking something away.

Someone (or possibly something) had separated out the ugly potatoes from the perfect ones and taken them out of the equation. It must make their processing more complex and time consuming. But it made a massive difference to my experience (and presumably M&S’s profit margins too).

What’s it got to do with web content?

So what does this mean for the content you’re writing and the user experience you’re creating?

You need to take out the ugly potatoes.

Yes, it’s going to be difficult and time consuming to sort the complicated, thorny, hard-to-understand parts of your content from the smooth, easily peelable parts. And it’s not always easy to see how your gnarliest sections can be broken down or smoothed out.

But if you don’t, you’re leaving your user to grapple with the knotty bits, knowing they’ll be getting frustrated, skipping the ugliest potatoes all together and potentially throwing in the towel and ordering Deliveroo instead.

“You need to take out the ugly potatoes or risk your user throwing in the towel and ordering Deliveroo instead.”

And we don’t want that.  

We want our users to love us, and love consuming our content. Especially if it means they’ll pay more for the privilege. 

Six tips for less-is-more web content

Here’s how you can start paring down your content to make it easier for your users to digest.

Do a content audit

The content on far too many website is like a teenager’s bedroom floor: a chaotic tangle of things that have ended up somewhere they don’t belong. Most of them could do with a good clean and some just need to go straight in the bin. A content audit is an essential step in restoring order and making the most of the content your users value.

Crunch your data to see what’s popular

Use a combination of Google analytics data, heatmapping tools and Google Tag Manager to understand how users are engaging with your site content. Keep the stuff that’s working and change or remove the bits that aren’t.

Use keyword research to explore what your users want

Talk to real users or grill your sales team to find out what questions your users are asking. Use free tools like Google Trends and Answer the Public, or paid keyword analysis tools like Semrush or Moz to discover what terms your users are searching for. If you can find a forum, publication, Reddit channel or Instagram hashtag where your users spend time you’ll pick up some ideas here too.

Focus on the goals

Websites work best when they help the user and the business meet their goals. For each page, identify the key user and what they will be trying to achieve on this page. Then pin down what your business goal is for this user and focus on the area of overlap.

Give your user the content they want

When it comes to putting content on your site, try to forget about how you think it should be structured. Instead, take a moment to think about what your user will be trying to achieve and how you can structure your content to help them do it.

Get help from Hemmingway

Paste your copy into the Hemmingway app. This is a great tool which will help you tighten up your copy by identifying sentences which are too long or difficult to understand.

Or get someone to do it for you.

Start creating web content that cuts to the chase.