How to Write for the Web

Web writing is the best way to promote a web site, sell a product, or attract attention to a service. But, most web content is ignored by people who are reading and Google. The first thing a writer needs to do is build credibility. To do that they need good content; This means content that Google and web readers consider good, not what a university professor considers good.

This information is based on studies and research that I found on the web, as well as my own experience. If you want to read the statistics, then go to this page: http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/. There are a few dozen articles for people who are truly interested in mastering the art of web writing.

People do not read web articles. They scan web articles. To make the most of this, a web writer needs to do a few things that print writers do not need to do.

Highlight Keywords

Highlighting keywords is the most misunderstood. This doesn't mean that you make every keyword bold. Trust me, I have seen this. Just highlight the keywords with the most important information in the same paragraph.

Sub Headings

Magazines and books need clever titles and sub titles. Web articles need short, clear and conscience titles.

Lists

Lists are good, but you need to keep them neat. I prefer to use sub headings and allow the reader to pick and choose what they need. Unless, the list is so short and brief, or there is almost no supporting information, then I'll use lists.

Inverted Pyramid

This is a journalism style that starts with the conclusion first. Web readers are impatient. A web article needs to follow this pattern:


Conclusion
Why the reader needs to read the article
-Solutions to problems
-methods of improving performance
Important points
-information
-samples and examples
-outbound links to research
Summary
Author Credibility
Links to more articles

This is considered the inverted pyramid style of article writing.

Word Count

Web articles should be half the size of print articles. If they are long, they need to be broken into several smaller sections.

A print article released on the web receives few reads,
A short explanation with a bulleted list receives 124% more reads,
This article will receive 45% more reads than the print article,
A summarized article will receive 28% more reads.

Long articles should be divided. No reader is going to scroll endlessly down a page. They would rather have one large article divided into several 400 - 700 page segments, each page should be labeled to indicate the information available in that part of the article.

Voice and Style

Web writing is not the platform for writers who want to impress with their industry lingo, vernacular, and education. Web articles should be written at a mass market level: grade 7 English, simple sentence structure, no industry jargon, basic explanations.

Navigation

Writers do not want to search for content. They want the answers on the page they arrive at. This is why Second Page Articles are detrimental to success. Second page articles are ones where the first page sets the reader up for more information, but the rest of the information is on the second page. Most readers will skim the first page, but they will never arrive at the second page.

Make it easy for readers to find different sections of the article. Never assume that Google or Yahoo will bring the reader to the first page of the article, so each page of the article should have links to the other sections. Also, the links to these other parts should not be listed part 1, part 2, part 3. Instead, each link should use a keyword that lets readers know which part of the article has the information they are looking for.

Most Common Complaints or Concerns

I went through the research and found some of the most common complaints. These complaints were collected by the company doing the study.

Information is hard to understand
The web owner's credibility was in doubt
The web writer's credibility was in doubt
Lack of outbound links to research sites
Adding humor increases reader's experience
Took too long to find the information
Could not scan the articles
Article didn't start by telling me why I should read further.
Prefer hypertext that leads to more information
Sounded like they were trying to sell something

Google and Web Content

Many writers feel that they only need to change an article title and a few words and they can resubmit the article. Or, they change the sentence structure and release the article. They send their work to review sites and content sites, but wonder why it is rejected. The reason this work is rejected is simple. Google is smarter than most web writers are.

Google knows there is article writing content out there. So, it has learned how to recognize sentence structure and content similarities between articles. That is why it recognizes the following two sentences as the same:

the white cow jumped the blue fence
the purple dog bit the purple person

So, if you want to post several versions of an article on the net, the best thing to do is rewrite each one from a different point-of-view, focus, and audience.

Further research can be done by searching for Web




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