WEBSITE WRITING IS A SPECIALIST JOB

It is not easy to write your own website content. There are various considerations to think about such as writing style and composition, grammar, stickiness of the content, keywords for search engines, etc.

Besides, website content is not only text information; it also includes graphics selection and placement, website design, navigation, and links.

Today, website users suffer from information overload. To combat user fatigue, websites should make it easy for users to get only the relevant information they need in bite-sizes as much as possible. In order for users to understand your company, products or services the biggest challenge for today’s websites can be summarized into 2 golden goals:

  • Attract users’ attention for 10 seconds.
  • Retain users’ reading interest for 55 seconds.

What websites need is a specialist for the job. Traditional writing for print is not suited for website content. Why? Online readers are very different from traditional readers. While traditional readers read word by word, online readers do not read at all.

Online users merely scan websites. They simply pick out individual words and sentences. This was based on a study done by usability expert Jacob Nielsen, which revealed that 79% of web users only scan pages for the following reasons:

  • Reading from computer screens is tiring for the eyes.
  • Reading from computer is slower than reading from paper.
  • Users are driven to click on things in order to move on.
  • Each page has to compete with millions of other web pages.
  • Users are in a hurry to get the information they need.

Expert web writers use the following tricks to overcome these obstacles:
  • Scannable texts such as:
     • Highlighted keywords
     • Meaningful headings and sub-headings
     • Bulleted lists
  • Simple words and no marketese
  • Hypertext links
  • One-idea per paragraph
  • Inverted pyramid style of writing
  • Shorter sentences

Here are more links on website writing:
How to Write for the Web
How to Write a Website Brief
Writing for Websites
Website Content Writing Tips that Work