Before I talk about writing for websites, think about your own behaviour when you go to a website.
Do you start reading long paragraphs and then start to skip every few words or sentences?
In other words do you scan?
Do you look for a bullet point section that gives an overview of the content?
And what about the width of the text area, is it going from left to right across the entire length of the screen that makes it hard to read?
Are you attracted to websites that have photos and diagrams that help explain or enhance the content?
So when you start writing for websites, think about how you read them.
A study by Jakob Nielsen found that on the average webpage, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit, although 20% is more likely.
1.
Be concise and don’t provide paragraph after paragraph with masses of details. Remember, writing for websites is different.
Don’t underestimate people’s intelligence or imagination. Slow down the use of the passive voice, by ensuring the subject of your sentence is doing the action rather than being acted upon.
And not too many adverbs otherwise it could come across as a weak impression.
2.
Write for people who scan (as most of us do).
Highlighting in bold or italics is good, but don’t go into overkill and do a multi coloured, bolded, italicised, underlined text and it will not only be harder to read but it will lose impact of the the words you do want highlighted. Rely on the global formatting of your website to stick to a few styles.
Subheadings are great as the scanners know exactly what is in that paragraph.
Bullet points are excellent and can be in the body of the text or even better in a separate side column with a lightly coloured background that brings attention to people.
Many years ago whitespaces were thought of as wasted space, but it has been realised that whitespaces such as gaps between vertical or horizontal columns organises the text and makes it less overwhelming.
In academic writing, the foundation of the argument is usually last, but on the internet writers have found that they get more engagement from readers if their ‘argument’ or conclusion is at the top. People are impatient when reading on the internet as most of the time they don’t have the time. So giving them the point of what you are saying quickly is far more engaging.
3.
Credibility is so important for readers particularly with the enormous amount of internet content that is full of misinformation (fake news that is spread regardless of intent to mislead) and disinformation (deliberate intention to mislead especially propaganda)
If you are taking into account search engine optimisation, blog posts should be between 2,100 – 2,400 words as it is more likely to be indexed by Google as the ratio of keywords you have included is higher and the higher word count gives Google a chance to better understand what your text is about. But… it depends on the content as you don’t want to bore people, or go down a rabbit hole and lose track of your objective for writing the article in the first place.
Many years ago whitespaces were thought of as wasted space, but it has been realised that whitespaces such as gaps between vertical or horizontal columns organises the text and makes it less overwhelming.
In academic writing, the foundation of the argument is usually last, but on the internet writers have found that they get more engagement from readers if their ‘argument’ or conclusion is at the top. People are impatient when reading on the internet as most of the time they don’t have the time. So giving them the point of what you are saying quickly is far more engaging.