Blue Dreamer Blog
Written articles and my personal thoughts on web design, ecommerce, the internet and odd ramblings about life, the universe and everything!
10 tips for writing for the web
Experts are saying you only have a few seconds to capture the attention of your web sites visitors before losing them. One key area is your text content copy, get it wrong and you risk losing your visitors attention, get it right and you have a potential customer. So here are my 10 tips for writing for the web…
1. Use a useful page title
On this page you’ll see the title of this page “10 tips for writing for the web”. The text of the title should be short and to the point, something like “10 tips” means very little whereas “10 tips for writing for the web” is more specific and anyone will be able to understand what the article or page is about immediately.
2. Say it in less words
I always like to say “Why use 100 words when you can say the same thing in 10?”. Reading text on a computer screen is hard work so help your visitors by being brief and to the point.
3. Use paragraphs
Huge blocks of text are hard to read on a computer monitor so if you have a lot to say split it up with paragraghs. This makes it easier for users not only to read but to skip through the article.
4. Use lists
Sometimes using a list makes more sense. Consider a paragraph of text something like… “At ACME Ltd we provide you with many useful products for web sites like web design, hosting for your site, we can provide domain registration as well if required and also offer search engine optimisation.” ... it’s a bit waffly so could be made easier to read by using a list…
- Full web design service
- Secure web hosting
- Domain registration
- Search engine optimisation
5. Highlight important words and phrases
If you want to make a word or phrase stand out then use Bolded text or Emphasised text, this allows users who scan read a page to pick out key points as well as allowing you to bring to attention anything important. I’m not going to talk about the semantics of which HTML tags to use for bolding/italicising here but never underline plain text, underlining is for links!
6. Spell and grammar check
This goes without saying really, lots of spelling mistkes don’t give a good impression and if you get the grammar out of kilter you will end up confusing everyone. We all make typos from time to time - even me!
7. Don’t “click here”!
Click here for what? If I click this link where will I go - somewhere not nice? Use meaningful link text that informs the visitor what the linked page is about.
“I found this great site called Google search engine. You can visit Google click here”
“I found this great site called Google search engine.”
8. Avoid corporate jargon!
You may know your corporate speak inside out but that doesn’t mean your visitors will. Keep your text copy in a plain, easy to follow and understand format. If you have to talk about buzz words and phrases explain what they mean - “Great ROI” would be better explained as “Great Return On Inverstment (ROI). I suppose the use of ABBR and ACRONYM html tags would be encouraged here but they are outside the scope of this artice.
9. User testing
Testing your text copy is a great way to optimise your visitors experience. Get some people to browse your site and give you feedback on anything that they had a problem with, could not understand, or couldn’t find! You can then use these results to fine tweak everything.
10. Find a copywriter
If you really want to get it as best as possible then look to hire a good web designer or professional copywriter.
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