Best Practices For Writing For Online Readers

[snakeair]

O this is a good blog post to read.

I have less than 30 seconds to capture your attention with this post, so here goes: if you read some, most or all of the next 750 words or so, you will know how to write Web copy that is more useful to readers of your blog or Web site.

As we reported yesterday visual content is continuing its steady rise in dominance over written content. But that doesn't mean we should give up on good writing: if anything, it means we need to think harder about how we write for online readers.

Online Readers Are Different

Seems pretty obvious, right? But the fact is, many of us still write the same way online as...

Continued at: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...ne_readers.php

Your thoughts on this blog post?

[Dreamrage]

Another bookmark. I think its a good read for people that are new to writing as well as those that need a refresher. It has a lot of good points. I learned quite a bit from it.

[BuriedAlive1]

Einstein once said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough".

This applies to writing, too. Writers who are knowledgeable in a certain field tend to use a lot of hifalutin words and jargons which are all Dutch to someone unfamiliar or who is just starting to learn about the topic written about. So take the time to explain and use simple terms and construct simple sentences.

[dame016]

True. I get tired of reading articles with complex, incomprehensible thoughts. A simple, straightforward article can be more appealing, provided that it is useful, informative and entertaining.

But in my personal blog, I am guilty of number 1. I get cute in writing my headlines.

[Czorny]

My fulltime job boss is crazy about writing it all in complex, pretending-to-be-solid phrases. Tons of them. That's what drives me really mad, especially when the guy reaches me before a text is published.

[onlineedublog]

a really nice article what i 've experience with myself to is that you write plain english which is easier for users to read as their is global traffic on Internet so you need to write easy word so even intermediate English speaker can read it ..!

[stone]

The article says use 1 pic per article, and they use 2, neither of which are particularly relevant.

The article says "Don't get cute."
My experience is that a well chosen 'cute' title gets them there, to the point of people stealing the article...

Otherwise... it's the same message that everyone else writes about, keep it short, get to the point, use plenny of white spaces, and remember that writing for the web is different from writing a book.