The world wide web is a fantastic publishing medium. Anyone, anywhere, with a web browser can access it; it’s easy to update materials; quick and cheap to publish; and adding links to other pages enhances the value of your own. But the web was not designed to be an all-purpose display medium. Computer screens are low-resolution eye-strainers. You can’t easily curl up on the sofa with a web page.
When writing for the web, bear in mind the power and the constraints of the medium. Here are five golden rules.
- Use the ‘inverted pyramid’ – web users are unwilling to scroll through articles to get to the point. Summarise your story up front to lead readers to the rest of the article
- Keep it brief – reading lengthy copy onscreen is uncomfortable. Articles should be short — maybe no more than 500 words per screen — to maximise readability
- Make articles ’scannable’ – use highlights and bullets to draw the wandering eye of the web user
- Use the power of hypertext – easy linking is the greatest strength of the web. Links should be used sparingly within text. Well-maintained collections of links and references give people reasons to publicise and revisit documents
- Keep information up-to-date, accurate and consistent – on the web, as with any medium, errors, inconsistencies and out-of-date material damage credibility
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[...] the interest of not repeating ourselves, we have a short list of ‘writing for the web’ guidelines covering the importance of brevity, ’scannability’, accuracy, linking and [...]
[...] writing for the web, for example, adhering to simple rules makes your copy more effective (see Web, writing for). But the question of whether you have matched the message to the medium can be asked of any [...]