Building Better Digital Storylines

Stories don’t always have to be longwinded to get their points across. You can conjure up most of the memorable stories throughout history with only a few words or essential characters. A storytelling website won’t have 500 pages to read, but it might take 500 words.

When we buy books or movies, it’s assumed we’re going to stay until the story reaches its conclusion. With a website, however, there is no presumption of prepayment. If you don’t like something, you can leave without consequence.

The No. 1 reason why people quit on a website is due to a lack of message awareness. Valorous Circle employs the 5-second 5th-Grader test.

In other words, can a regular person with an already short attention span know what your site promotes in a handful of Mississippis?

Here are a few steps to start building better stories.

1. Shout It Out

Thrillers and dramas often reserve the final reveal until the final act. With websites, however, time is most definitely of the essence. You need to get straight to the point and draw viewers into the heart of your messaging. Who are you? What are you doing here? Why am I reading this? Where can I learn more? All questions you should have answers to in the first seconds.

2. Set the Stage

Infographics, photo galleries, animations, GIFs, fonts, and more are all storytelling ingredients. Anything that engages a potential customer on your site is an element that needs to impact a reader’s next decision. Remember, these leads can leave your site at any time, which is all the more reason to make things stand out more than usual.

3. Introduce the Main Players

Every story needs characters, even if the most important one is the viewer. Having the viewer be the main character in your account can be an engaging experience if your products or services can have an immediate impact. Informational or long-run service sites will want to introduce personalizes and empathetic guides for your storytelling website. The time for aimlessly browsing a site ends because someone is actively guiding the decision-making process.

4. Leave an Out

Leaving your potential lead an out isn’t counterintuitive, it’s good business. As with all stories, sometimes you need to put the book down or hit pause. Websites are no different. By offering up contact information, live web chats and forms, and navigation menus, you leave viewers a chance to take a break while opting to read more at a later date.

 

Creating the perfect storytelling website doesn’t have to be a tall task. Start your storyline today with a little help from Valorous Circle.

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