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Guide to Good Web Writing
by Samantha Wray
Samantha has written everything from advice about how to walk out of a terrible interview with your dignity intact to a breakdown of the Scottish Curriculum for primary school maths (and it doesn’t get much weirder than that!).
Sam’s aim in life is to freelance full-time as she is deeply in love with her duvet and finds life before noon difficult.
Her freelance journalism career started with writing for BBC Education Online after completing a BA at Oxford and an MA at Kings. Both her degrees are in English literature and she can testify to them being no use whatsoever out in the big wide world of jobs (but a whole lot of fun).
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Whether you're a Client or an Expert using smarterwork, this is the guide you need. Below are a few pointers to ensure your web content is as direct and informative as it can be. They may seem obvious but there are still many badly written websites out there, in desperate need of an overhaul.
If you're an expert, the following applies to the copy that you write. If you're a client, apply the following to your website and if it comes up wanting, perhaps you want to think about contacting smarterwork!
The Basics
Your content should be concise, easy to scan and well targeted. A paperless office may be the future but people use the web as an information tool that they look at and want to print off a selection of pages to take home to read.
Concise
Ideal web content has:
- a low word count;
- one idea per paragraph;
- highlighted key words.
A big paragraph of text is difficult enough to read on screen, let alone a whole page. Make the information you are providing accessible by keeping it short and to the point.
Easy to Scan
Ideal web content uses the inverted pyramid structure - i.e. it works in the opposite way to an essay, beginning with the conclusion and filling in the details as the page scrolls down.
A brief glance at the first paragraph should make clear what the page is about and enable the reader to decide whether to read on or move on. Any up-close-and-personal detail is only for the really interested and belongs at the bottom of the page.
Ideal content means:
- there should be no long sentences with sub clause after sub clause;
- bullet points should be used wherever possible.
Well Targeted
It is crucial that the vocab and style are right for the site's target audience. You need to consider the age and range of users, as well as thinking about how you want to present yourselves - as fun and friendly, serious but approachable, or post-modern and ironic….
The Balance to Strike
Web pages should encapsulate all the user needs to know, so that they can be printed off to be read again later. But a website must never be set up with dead-end pages - i.e. ones that don't lead anywhere, no matter how informative they are in themselves. If your user is constantly hitting the back button, your site isn't working.
The balance is for each page to stand alone as a useful informative guide, whilst also encouraging users to move forward through links to other parts of the site.
For Experts Only
Your content has to be fantastically well-written but it also has to be easily translated into a fully functioning site. When submitting your content, you'll need to:
- use page numbers or references to allow the designer or programmer to understand exactly where each page sits on the site;
- use key words to help the site to be selected by search engines;
- provide a full list of internal and external links; number them and annotate the text accordingly.
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