Some Tips for the Inexperienced Web Writer
Becoming a good writer doesn’t happen overnight. However, by following a few simple basic rules, you can make significant progress. Here are four concrete tips for those who want to enhance the quality of their website's content.
To become a successful author or a skilled writer requires practice—lots of practice and education. The same applies when it comes to writing for the web. The following four simple tips will help you make considerable strides. They focus more on the structure of the content than on the content itself, making them easy to apply even for the inexperienced writer.
Write Informative Headlines and Subheadings
Headlines, like links, attract attention when a visitor scans the page, so it’s important that the headlines on your page make the visitor stop and encourage further reading. For the same reason, it’s also important that the headline stands on its own.
A well-written and informative text risks never being read if the headline does not generate enough interest for the visitor to start reading the text. Besides enticing the reader to the text itself, the main headline also provides an overview of the content on the page.
In addition to the main headline on the page, it’s important (especially for longer pages) to use subheadings to delineate the content within the text. Well-written subheadings help the reader gain an overview of the content on the page and place each paragraph in context. Subheadings also allow visitors to jump directly to the part of the information that interests them.
Another positive effect of using subheadings is that they create some space in the text, making the page less dense and therefore more readable.
Write Short Paragraphs and Break Them Up Often
Nothing drives visitors away more than large, dense blocks of text. Increase the chances that what you write will be read by writing short paragraphs and breaking them up often. On the web, 1-3 sentences per paragraph is ideal. Having just one sentence in a paragraph is perfectly fine. However, be careful not to break for a new paragraph in the middle of a thought chain.
Writing short paragraphs is especially important for informational pages. For articles and newsletters, the situation is different. Although breaking up paragraphs makes reading easier in these cases as well, slightly longer paragraphs usually work well.
Write Link Texts That Clearly Describe Where the Link Leads
Ensure that your link texts clearly describe where your links go. This should be obvious, yet many still use link texts like “here,” “this link,” “read more,” or other similar generic expressions. When a visitor scans the page to determine whether they are in the right place, links like “read more” and “click here” are utterly meaningless.
Example: Many websites instruct users to “click here” before links on the page, which is completely unnecessary, so try to avoid that. Here are some examples of rather poor link texts taken from a car dealer's website:
- Opening hours click here
- Click here to switch car brands.
- Click here to read more.
- Click here to see the offers.
- Current offers. See all ads click here.
Write Concisely
Remove all text and unnecessary words that only fill your page and prevent visitors from finding the information they really need. Take a good look at your content and eliminate information that your visitors neither need nor want to know.
Is it possible to write it shorter or simpler? Do it! On the web, it’s essential to adhere to the principle of “less is more.”
Creating content is like running a marathon, but the content itself will be like a sprint: short and punchy.
– McGovern, Gerry (2006), Killer Web Content, p. 213
And when it comes to this, not much has changed since 2006…