How to adjust your writing style for the web.

1. Write For Web Training
Feb 2016

2. Why Are We Looking At This?
• Because it is important!
• Jakob Neilson Research:
o 5 different versions of the same website (same
basic information; different wording; same site
navigation).
o Invited users to perform the same tasks on the
different sites. Results were dramatic!
oConcise text was 58% better
oScannable text was 47% better
oConcise & Scannable: 124% better

3. All About Me
What matters to your user? How can you deliver it?

4. All About Me
What do you think of these?
http://socialentrepreneurs.ie/
https://www.vhi.ie/global-health-
insurance/index.jsp
http://www.libertyinsurance.ie/
http://www.beauchamps.ie/
http://www.ecmwf.int/
http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/Pages/home.asp
x

5. All About Me?
• Let’s look at your site

6. Who Are These People?
Users are selfish, lazy and ruthless (Neilson)
They ruthlessly scan for interesting chunks of
information rather than digesting the whole,
and they want to be entertained in the
process.

7. How People Read Online
• They don’t
• Fixations…increase the chance of fixation by
using longer words (we tend to skip over short
words)
• F

8. How People Read Online

9. How People Read Facebook

10. How People Read Online
What Can You Do?
• Get to the point (no nice wordy intro’s)
• Don’t centre or justify text
• Keep links on the left

11. How People Read Online
Examples:
http://www.focuskerry.com/jeanie/
http://fixmystreet.ie/

12. How People Read Online

13. Scannability

14. Scannability

15. Scannability
• Headlines
– Numbers work
– Explain the benefits (10 useful tips for writing headlines that will
boost your traffic)
– Use adjectives: amazing, awesome, beautiful, excellent, useful,
brilliant, powerful, sensational, terrific, unique, valuable,
wonderful
– Celebrity / brand names
– Create a sense of urgency
– 65 chars allows for RT’s
– Post a question
– How to…
– Use your analytics

16. Headlines

17. Scannability
• Heading
• Summary
– Sell the idea in 30-50 words
– Who/What/Where/When/how
– Last sentence with added punch
• Sub headers
• Use of colour
• Bold keywords
• Bullets

18. Scannability

19. Skimmibility
• Write less
– Half the word count of "conventional writing"! (Ouch!)
– Short sentences. Tip: look for commas
• One idea per paragraph
• Active verbs
• Simple present tense
• No to the passive voice
• No multi-syllabic words
• Lose the jargon
• Dates

20. Skimmibility

21. Finessing It
• Calls to action & point of action assurances
– That seductive moment when a user is about to
take action
– Download a form, add to shopping cart, click a
button…
– They can lose confidence, so you must add some
added text that instils trust

22. Finessing It
• Set expectations about how things will be
handled, what to expect.

23. Finessing It
• No More Click Here!!
– Not accessible
– Not user friendly
– Self consciously writing for web
• Don’t be afraid to have long hyperlinks

24. Finessing It
• Great online forms are important because
they help us achieve our goals (CTA)
• This is the best piece on great forms:
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011
/11/08/extensive-guide-web-form-usability/

25. Measuring It
• Measuring the results of your copywriting
using the Flesch Kincaid Readability Index

26. Measuring It
Your new friend:
http://www.readability-score.com/

27. SEO
Title Tag: appears on the very top of the page. The
most important one so get it right!
• Try and put your keyword into the start of the
tag.
• Keep it to 70 characters.
• Be emotive – the title tag is the bit that users
will first come across in search engine results.
• Be mindful of Title Case

28. SEO
Description Tag: write for your reader, tell them what this post is
about. If you don’t fill in description tag, Google usually picks up
the first line from the post. It’s nice to have the option to tell it in
your own words.
• Try and get keywords in if possible
• Keep it to 150-160 characters.
• Be careful about punctuation/spelling etc.
Keywords. You don’t really have to bother with these as search
engines no longer pick them up here, preferring to pick up the
actual words in the post.

29. What Is Wrong Here?