Effective Writing for the Web

In the land of the Internet, content is king. A site may be well publicised, load quickly, and look good, but if it doesn't engage or entertain readers, it isn't going to hold their interest. So let's take a few minutes to explore how you can write fantastic, riveting, and gob-smacking content that will keep them coming back time and time again.

Give Them What They Want

The defining attribute of a good Web site is that it gives people what they want and takes account of the fact that not everyone is looking for the same information. One of the advantages of the Internet over traditional media is that it's very easy to find out the kind of content your users are looking for. While a magazine publisher can't peer over the shoulder of every reader, a Web developer can effectively do just that. Editorial direction should be statistic-driven. Look at the document hits and see which articles or site sections are loaded most often.

There are, however, two major problems with this approach. First, page hits can be easily affected by how you design your site. If you put the link to corporate information prominently at the top of the page, and hide the riveting and steamy sex-orientated content alongside the legal notices at the bottom of the page, the former is much more likely to garner a larger proportion of visitors—even if it's boring as hell.

The second big downer is that these statistics only reflect the interests of the users who found something they were interested in. It doesn't show the disappointment of those who clicked away because they discovered nothing that was sufficiently appealing.

Fortunately, there's another way to learn about your online audience—take a gander at what they type in the search engine box. The advantage of this approach is that their choice isn't limited or biased by the links you offer. With a budget to commission, say, five 1000 word pieces, you could analyze the top search terms over the last couple of months, and then seek out writers who can produce work based upon these terms. After all, it's not what you want to see on your site that matters, it's what your users want to read.

Write Good Copy

Good writing on the Web is, for the most part, the same as good writing in every other medium. Being a good writer, like being a good football player, takes both talent and practice. Fortunately, for all us content developers with more practice than talent, there are rules that guide us along. Unlike the best football players, the best writers are those who learn to break the rules, while still playing the game. As a novice, however, it makes sense to follow them closely.

The first rule of good writing is make sure you use the right words and spell them properly. Notepad might be fine for coding HTML, but it doesn't have a spell checker. Use a word processor.

Another essential piece of a writer's tool kit is a dictionary. The Webster's New World Edition or the Concise Oxford is a good bet. A copy of Roget's Thesaurus is also handy to have around when your faculty for producing imaginative synonyms falls flat on its face. The Wired Style guide is tailored specifically for Internet writing and is a handy addition to any Web writer's bookshelf. The Chicago Manual of Style, Fowler's Modern English Usage, and Elements of Style (written by Strunk & White) are also essential reading for those looking to write well.

But that's far from the whole story. Good grammar isn't limited to caring whether a word is a gerund or a prepositional adjective; it's about writing prose that doesn't make the reader think, "Huh? What was that?" in the middle of a sentence. Grammar checkers can help, but they are a bit too rigid. Writing professional copy means thinking about your choice of words and their construction and arrangement—in terms of flow, clarity, brevity, energy, engagement, and interest.

Short, punchy sentences tend to work well on the Web. Paul Schindler, Editor of Byte.com describes it as "writing like Ernest Hemingway. Blowing the wind out of the reader. That said, variety is the name of the game. A piece will often have greater impact if you have some longer sentences interspersed with much shorter ones.

The difficulty is in writing a long sentence that doesn't trip the reader up. The key is putting the right punctuation in the right places. Unfortunately, because reading on a screen is much less natural than reading on paper, your customers are more susceptible to losing the plot when reading the material on your corporate site. Readers don't like being confused, and if they don't understand what you're saying, they won't stick around to figure it out.

Writing Like a Tough Guy

Amongst the writing fraternity, there seems to be a consensus that bold Saxon words are better than poncy Latinate ones. For example, "vision" has a Latin etymology, while "sight" has Saxon origins. In the same way, "frantic" comes from the Latin, and "busy" comes from the Saxon. It's all part of what Dave Sims, Editorial Director of the O'Reilly Network, describes as "writing like a tough guy. Really though, it's horses for courses. If you want to give the impression of sophistication, formality, and learning, then Latinate words are a good choice. If you want to appear unfussy and direct, then Saxon words are the ones to use. Match your tone to your audience.

Verbiage is a quite different matter. Not every word in a piece of writing will make a contribution to its meaning; sometimes its presence may be justified by improving the rhythm or tone of a statement. In general, however, circumlocutory prose should be avoided. On the Internet, users don't want to be beaten around the bush.

If instant engagement is what you're looking for, then it's essential that you use the active, rather than the passive, voice. For example, the phrase, "You are loved by him is in the passive voice, while the less circuitous, "He loves you, is in the active voice. The direct quality of the active voice engenders reader interest.

When you wish to downplay a statement, the passive voice acts to distance you from the subject under discussion. It allows the writer to avoid using "I in his prose—the most heinous of crimes and the sure sign of an amateur. Ultimately though, which voice you use is purely a judgement call. Don't get too wrapped up in the theory of it all. The fact of the matter is that nobody cares whether your voice is active or passive as long as it sounds 'right.' That's the call.

On a final note, Yvonne Alexander, a Principal of Alexander Media Communications, thinks that most corporate copy, particularly on Web sites, has a bad attitude. "Don't talk about features, talk about benefits. Tell the users not just what you can do, but how you can help them. She has a few other thoughts. "Try to write in the vernacular of the audience you are targeting. If they are programmers, then use the technical jargon. If they are businessmen, then talk about the subject in business terms.

Editing and Proofing

Have you ever wondered why often it's the editors who seem to write the worst copy for magazines? Invariably, its because they edit their own work—a sin of gargantuan proportions. The difficulty is that after writing an article, your perspective on the piece is tainted because you have already traveled the tracks of thought that are unique to your creation. It's impossible to read copy as a normal reader would because you know what is going to come next.

Even if your budget won't support a copy editor's salary, get someone in your office with a feel for language to look over your work. The process really isn't that complicated. The copy editor chops out every extraneous word they can find in the piece, corrects the spelling and grammar, and rigorously applies the rules laid out in the house style document. The writer then takes the article back and reviews the changes. By using the Revisions Tool in a word processor like MS Word, you can review which amendments were made during which editing phase.

Bear in mind though, that the role of the copy editor is not to rewrite the story (if he or she needs to do that, then you need to hire another writer), but to enhance the writer's tone, feel, and expression. Editors should not supplement these aspects with their own.

An editorial style sheet is essential to ensure that content on your site appears consistent and professional. It doesn't really matter whether you say that a machine has "128MB of RAM, "128 MB of RAM or "128mb of RAM, providing that you say it the same way every time. Guidelines need to be tailored to the type of content your site contains and need to be amended and updated. They also need to reflect your prime audience. If you are producing a site for a London-based division, then it makes sense to use International English spellings. If you are putting together pages for a small retailer based in Montana, then US English would be more appropriate.

Structure and Layout

The most important part of an article or site section is the beginning—in journalese it's called a "lede." The whole point of this introduction is to entice the reader into the content. It's essential that the lede piques and engages the reader, and it's preferable that it gives them some idea what the rest of the article is about.

How the article ends is also pretty important. This is where you draw your conclusions, summarise your argument and impress the reader with your rapacious wit—good stories are those that leave the reader either thinking or smiling. The best are those that leave them doing both.

It's a good idea to use headings in the construction of your article. "Heds," as they are referred to sometimes, give the reader an overview of what information the following section contains so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not to read it.

Heading links at the top of the page also empower users, allowing them to pick and choose the information they digest. Try not to be too prosaic in your choice of headings. They should be descriptive, but that doesn't preclude them from being interesting or amusing. For the writer, adding headings as you produce your work helps you structure the piece and ensure that one section flows into the next.

One technique upon which the jury is still out is whether to split a longer article into two or more parts. Content sites that are financed on advertising revenue, such as Salon and Wired News, are particularly keen on the idea. Obviously if you split a 2,000 word article into four or five parts, then you get four or five times as many page hits. Gary Kamiya, VP for Content at Salon Magazine, justifies this by explaining that, "from the psychological point of view, it synthesises traditional media, where you turn pages as you travel through the article. This makes the reader feel more comfortable reading longer stories.

Whether it's a good choice for other sorts of sites is disputable. Yvonne Alexander is less impressed by the merits of a multi-page layout: "I find it rather annoying. The pages take so long to load that it breaks the flow of the article. It's also more difficult to write effective multi-page content because there is a need to entice the reader onto the next page at the end of each section. That's hard work.

Using Links

Good Web content should take advantage of the tools of the medium. Hyperlinks are one of those unique tools of electronic media. Knowing how and where to use hyperlinks is tough. Kamiya admits that "better use could be made of links in articles, but to uncover and decide which resources to include is very time consuming. Schindler thinks that part of the problem is that nobody is sure whether it is the responsibility of the writers or the editors to research possible links. As he puts it, "when everyone is responsible, nobody is responsible.

As a bare minimum, links should be used to provide word definitions and provide internal links to related sections of the site. But don't go to extremes and overload your content with links—only include those that will be genuinely useful to your target audience. Too many links on a page can be confusing and irritating and distract the reader from the actual content.

Hit It With All You've Got

Most editors and writers have strong ideas about the differences between electronic and traditional media, but there are no hard and fast rules. Schindler believes that readers like "short news you can use, while Kamiya notes that "some of the longest stories in Salon have been the most successful. But the fact is that writing is an art not a science, and there's more to producing engaging content than following every rule in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Good writing is about being able to take a subject and breathe life into it. And all the style manuals, dictionaries, and thesauri in the world won't help you do that if you don't properly research and grapple with your subject. Yet, if you do the work and find a way to write about your subject persuasively and interestingly, then no doubt your audience will be interested too. The bottom line is that Internet users are curious, information-driven people. And if you can give them content that's written with energy, passion, and vitality ... they'll think, and smile, and love you for it.

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