5 things to do when writing for the web
People read the web. People read books. But people don’t read the web and books the same way.
Several years ago DK had our own in-house copywriter, Jace Krause. At the time, we asked him to lay out what to consider when writing for an online audience.
Many of those tips are still perfectly valid, so we thought we’d summarize his article on improving your web writing skills here.
Writing for the web is a special craft.
Web users can easily leave your site if they get bored or don’t find the information they’re looking for.
It’s important to keep their attention, and keep your writing simple.
Web readers don’t read, they scan
With so many sites, links, ads and other places to go on the web, readers just don’t take time to fully read every word on every site. Use keywords, bullets and headlines. Keep your sentences simple.
Start at the end
Journalists already know this one. The whole point of the story is summed up in the first few lines. The rest of the details follow in order of decreasing importance. If your readers leave the page, you know they at least read the most important information.
Know your audience, and write accordingly
If you want to project a professional image, avoid web slang and shorthand (wuz up, LOL, etc). If your audience consists of young teenagers, save the words you learned in The New Yorker for another day.
Link
Links help direct traffic to and from your web site, which increases your search engine rankings.
But don’t overwhelm people with too many links in the body of your text. Save the most interesting and informative ones for the end of a paragraph or article. And be considerate–—give people an idea of what they can expect if they choose to click the link and leave your page.
Edit!
Read through your text to make sure it shines. Walk away. Go eat lunch. Come back and read it again. Read it aloud. If things sound funny, make changes.
Do not rely heavily on spellcheckers; they can miss the simplest grammatical errors.
For more information about web usability, check out Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug (@Amazon)
