Here is the podcast episode for you to listen to

Download ‘Content Page Design Best Practices’ episode

I have implemented one of the recommendations by Luke immediately. I was actually pretty shocked at what I am about to tell you. I was listening to the episode and Luke described how so many websites give so little screen real estate to the bread and butter of the page. The content. He mentioned how some websites expect the readers landing on content pages to engage with the content and have trust in it, yet they only give the content 25% of the screen real estate – or less!

When I heard this I was thinking to myself, ‘Yeah that’s not me, I put a lot of emphasis on my content. It’s a large block with a small sidebar of sign posts to my RSS feed and my social media goodness around the web. I’m alright Jack.’ So, I take a screen grab of DigiKev working on the basis that the majority of my visitors are using 1024×768 pixel screen ratio and bring it in to Photoshop to do some measurements on how much percentage I actually give my content in relation to the rest of the page.

The figures were in, there in black and white I saw the following:

1024×768 = 593609 pixels
of which 162870 pixels are given to the main content block.

162870 / 593609 * 100 = 27%

Uh-oh, I thought. 27% is not very good. The problem was that on my content pages I was providing a breadcrumb which was eating too far into the vertical screen real estate. I had plenty of margin around this though so there was lots of room for maneuvre. I have a rather large masthead which contains my branding, art work and menu structure. I like the impact of this and I feel it gives a good impression about who I am and the skillset I own.

After editing the page to shift the content and breadcrumb up I recalculated the percentage of page given to content:

195200 pixels dedicated to the main content block

195200 / 593609 * 100 = 32%

So I reclaimed an extra 5% of content relevant to the page, still not great. It could go further and it shall. I plan to either replace or reposition the side sign posting to be replaced with more relevant content to the subject of the page. This will reclaim a large proportion of the page to content:

297290 pixels dedicated to the main content block

297290 / 593609 * 100 = 50%

This will be a vast improvement by reclaiming 32% of the screen real estate to content. Content is key, we really need to make certain that we make content the hero of the page. It is of course what people visit our sites to consume. Try the sums yourself, give your content a healthcheck. What percentage are you dedicating to content?