5 Web Writing Wrules

Quite often when I search for specific stuff, I come across some cruddy websites but the content was almost always spot on for my needs. That tells me that the author made a site that performs what it is 'designed' to do and not what it is perceived to be - perhaps the site was not intentionally 'designed' but hey I'm happy lucky down with it.

My thoughts on three 'web writing' resources...

Nielsens paper is still current but I wouldn't say it was applicable to all web writing. In fact Nielsens list would have helped me more if each (valid) point focused on a particular audience i.e. a student, retail customer, home-maker, HR manager. As the interest from budding web designers increases and creates new meanings, so would the list. Meaningful results for web designers are not all based on web copy. Sometimes it's just about how the reader got to your website.

The Dartmouth College information was great because it went further into the context of the web user/reader and gave all those web rules some meaning. I agree with one of the points mentioned, that long web copy is probably not suitable for Joe surfer but for certain users it presents no barriers and in fact necessary. Sales pages for a popular in-demand product or service could get away with longer web copy.

I liked the site by Dennis G. Jerz and especially his direction offered to 'newbies' in web design. I think his content is helpful and relevant even 6yrs later.

5 Rules for Writing Online

1. Say what your site says! Write at least one sentence or short paragraph that tells the reader what is to follow on the webpage. Apparently people on the web have short attention spans and are fickle (don't know who proved that but it's mentioned by many in web design and development).
   
2. Write for your audience. Know (figure out, consider) who your typical interested reader might be and write like you are speaking to her. Formal or informal? Should you use a friendly tone or write with more authority?
   
3. Watch what you say! There's a big difference and certain unpleasant implications between what you 'think' and what you 'say as fact'. Add another sentence if you have to, just to be clear about what you mean. If you're joking, make that clear in your text! Adding disclaimers may not keep you out of trouble.
   
4. Do some basic proof reading. On the web first impressions might make the difference between a sale, a subscriber, positive credibility or your reader might leave the site if it's too hard to read.
   
5. Know the difference between copyright and copywriting in the context of web authoring. Copyright is the one that could get you into trouble, it involves the issues of legal and rightful use of images, audio, video etc. Copywriting is what a guy like Joe Robson would do for your website by writing uber-sticky words on a webpage to help sell your widget or whatever you like really, he's that good.