2. What are some types of writing
generally found on the web?
Web Writing vs Print Writing
How People Read on the Web: The
Eye tracking Evidence- A Report by
Jacob Nielsen on Online Reading
Behavior
What factors make BBC News
Headlines world's best?
3. Is there any key to become an
effective Web Based Writer?
Principles of Writing for the Web
How to Write User-Friendly Content
Scannability and Readability in Web
Writing
Is the Word counts significant for
Web Writing?
Web Writing: It's Written - Now
What?
4. Wikis: a collaborative website where multiple authors
add and edit content
Blogs: A theme based and focused web page engages the
reader, writing on subjects others are interested in.
Websites: Whether personal, professional, or corporate,
websites exist to give more information to the reader.
Help-guide or Tutorial: A website or page built
specifically to teach others a particular skill or skill set.
Newsletters & Fact Sheets: Usually downloadable from
an organization’s website, these documents are recurring
and updated as your audience needs.
What are some types of writing generally found on
the web?
5. People don't read information on the Web in the
same way as they read printed material.
Web doesn’t control the user
Web users skim content
Web Writing vs Print Writing
6. How People Read on the Web: The Eye
tracking Evidence- A Report by Jacob
Nielsen on Online Reading Behavior
Web users generally ignore extraneous graphics.
79% of users scan the page instead of reading
word for word, focusing on headlines, summaries
and captions.
Of those Web users who do read the entire page,
most only absorb 75% of the content.
Web readers are three times more likely than
newspaper readers to limit in-depth reading to
short paragraphs.
7. Cont… Observations of Dr Jacob Nielsen
Reasons for this behaviour include:
Reading from a computer monitor is 25% slower
than reading from print.
It increases eye strain and fatigue.
Web users often scan centre-left-right, instead of
left-right.
8. Dr Nielsen also developed a number of content-
oriented conclusions:
Web users are active, not passive. If a quick scan
doesn't show them the information they need,
they won't spend time searching for it.
The longer the text, the less likely Web users are to
read it.
The longer the text, the faster Web users will skim
the scannable elements (headlines, summaries,
and captions) - if they scan the page at all.
Web users don't believe hype. Any claim needs to
be backed up by facts
11. Some More Facts
People looked at 29% of words that appear in all capital
letters. People look at lists with bullets more often
than lists without bullets (70% vs. 55%, respectively).
Impressionable scanning: A person is more open to
reading the words as the author has written them.
In 59% of cases people looked no farther than
the third organic result.)
12. The Most Important Conclusions
Web content should have 50% of the
word count of its paper equivalent.
Why? Because:
Users don't read on the Web. They scan
pages and pick out headings,
sentences, and phrases to find what
they need.
Note: On the basis of his observations, Dr Nielsen
ranked BBC Headlines as the world’ best News
Channel
13. Summary: Precise communication in a handful of
words. The editors at BBC News achieve it every day,
offering remarkable headline usability, because the
Headlines are:
Short
rich in information scent, clearly summarizing the
front-loaded with the most important keywords
(because users often scan only the beginning of list
items) target article
understandable out of context
predictable
What factors make BBC News Headlines
world's best?
14. Examples : Concise and Informative
On a recent visit, the BBC list of headlines for
"other top stories" read as follows:
Italy buries first quake victims
Romania blamed over Moldova riots
Ten arrested in UK anti-terrorism raids
Villagers hurt in West Bank clash
Mass Thai protest over leadership
Iran accuses journalist of spying
15. Techniques/Principles of Writing for the
Web
Write for your readers, not for yourself.
As writers, our job is to inform readers - not to
try and impress them. To support First rule,
apply second:
Keep it simple, succinct and scannable.
Make your message clear.
16. Cont…
Put the most important information first, then a
short summary or explanation, and then include
the details; apply Inverted Pyramid Information
Structure:
17. Cont…
Write Summaries instead of Full Articles
Cut Out The Bull in Web Writing (Avoid jargon and
'industry speak'.)
Front-load your text. Put the most important
content on your page in the first paragraph, so
that readers scanning your pages will not miss
your main idea.
Be concise
Consider your purpose
18. Cont…
Write in first person and second person
Passive vs. Active voice
Use plain language
Apply Middle-Left-Right Pattern of writing rather
than Left-Right
Use a Consistent Voice for Web Writing
—The more familiar the voice, the more effective
it will be.
—Keep The Voice Positive (negative sentence
takes 48% longer time to understand a than to
understand a positive sentence- Dr Herbert H,
1974)
19. Cont…
Have clear-cut objectives. Write those objectives
down before starting to write, and then stick to
them.
Observe Scannability and Readability in Web
Writing
(Reading online is 25% slower than reading from
printed material)
Include key words from the associated Paragraphs.
Keep headings and sub-headings short, a maximum
of 4-8 words.
20. Cont…
Prefer enlisting rather long sentences
◦ Have no more than 9 items in a single list.
◦ Keep lists to a maximum of two levels.
◦ Use numbered lists where the order of entries is
important.
◦ Use bullet point lists where the sequence of entries
isn't important.
◦ Ensure each list is introduced by at least one line of
text.
21. Cont…
Paragraphs- Short paragraphs keep content
scannable
◦ Get to the point straight away, in the first line.
◦ Build each paragraph around a single idea.
◦ Paragraphs should be no longer than 40 - 70 words.
◦ Paragraphs should be no more than 5 lines.
◦ Keep summary paragraphs to 30 - 50 words.
◦ Try to vary the size of paragraphs.
Use bold text sparingly
◦ making everything bold, effectively renders none of it
bold..
22. Is the Word counts significant for
Web Writing?
Counting Words for Web Writing
Headings - 4 – 8
Sentences - 15 - 20
Paragraphs - 40 - 70
Summaries - 30 - 50
General pages - 500
Long Pages - 700
23. Web Writing: It's Written - Now What?
The content is finally written, now what do you do?
Re-write it.
If you haven't done at least three drafts, then you haven't
done it at all.
A good rule of thumb for any Web writer, especially a new
Web writer, is to take the original draft and do a word
count. Cut the number in half. Make the new number the
maximum word count and re-draft the document.
Only then, start editing. Leave a day or so between each
draft if possible, and concentrate on each draft as if it were
the final version.
24. Cont… Web Writing: It's Written - Now
What?
Read Aloud
Read the content aloud every time. Reading aloud
not only forces us to read word-for-word instead
of skimming, but helps make sure phrasing
conforms to natural speech cadences.
If it doesn't sound right when it's read aloud, it
won't 'sound' right on the Web.
If you can't leave drafts for a day before reading
again, convert them to a different format (eg. PDF,
HTML) and read aloud from the new format to get
a fresh view of the content.
