Writing for the Web

Important details that you should consider when writing for the Web

When you're browsing the Web for information, you're coming across variously structured pages. Some contain the exact information that you need, while others are full of details that prove to be inconclusive. The rule of thumb when writing for the Web is to keep the information well structured, and to respect some basic, very simple directions. Failure to do so will result in web users never attempting to access your web page again.

Theoretical Basis

In 1997, John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen have conducted a study to determine the way users read various texts on the Web. Their conclusion was that people tend not to read the text thoroughly, but they scan it instead. They browse through it, looking for the relevant information at the surface.

Web users are people that want to find information as quickly as possible. They seem to prefer short, right-to-the-point pages, and factual information to the overcharged, insipid and sometimes incomprehensible (due to the hyped language) "marketing fluff" that characterizes most of the writings that populate the Web nowadays.

The quality, credibility and relevance of the information are of utmost importance. Failure to satisfy any of these needs will determine users to never access a web page that has not provided concise, scannable and objective information.

In support of the above, the following paragraphs will attempt to cover some of the most important details that you should consider when writing for the web.

Text Format

Sections

Since scanning is the universally accepted norm for web texts, do try to make your text short, or, if not possible, split it into sections/chunks with relevant headings and subheadings. Web users are usually in a hurry. They need bite-size information, and fast. Help them and you will also do yourself a favor.

Headings and Subheadings

The first heading on the page is the most important. It tells the reader why the text is worth reading.
The next headings that you use must have more of an objective value than a stylistic one. They should sum up the content of the corresponding paragraph or sub-paragraph.

Bulleted and Numbered Lists

The purpose of the bulleted lists should be to make information more obvious. It also contributes to reducing the amount of text on the web page and improves scannability. Information that is obvious is easier to remember.

The usability concept
* A usable sales website is one where: Your visitors can easily find what they are looking for;
* Your answers to frequently asked questions are helpful and easy to locate;
* Your ordering system is easy to use and intuitive;
* Your visitors feel comfortable trusting you, the company that operates the website.

Tables

A table that contains relevant results of a study, for example, can be useful. It draws the reader's attention and also adds to the scannability of the text. Tables of contents are also useful, since they give users the opportunity to see right from the beginning if the information that they are looking for could be found in the text.

Captions

When you write for Web users, include pictures, tables, flowcharts, or diagrams in the page structure to support the text. Make sure that you also insert captions that identify the illustrations or table. Remember though that illustrations need captions only when the context is not clear enough.

Links

Use links to support the text's credibility. According to the nature of the text on your web page, you could provide links to glossaries that explain certain terms and concepts that you use in your text or to resources that you have used.

Nevertheless, refrain from using too many links. Users may think that what they read does not have a significant personal touch, and this will affect the credibility of your text. Avoid using terms such as "Click here" or "follow this link".

If your text is long, or split on several pages, add navigation links to other sections in your text, as this also improves scanning. Always make sure that you have no broken links (either internal or external) and that it is clear enough where the internal links will take the Web user.

Highlighting

If you want to bring something to your reader's attention and add to the scannability of the text, highlighting is a good policy. Highlight only key information-carrying words. Do not highlight entire sentences or long phrases because a reader that scans your page is only able to pick 2-3 words at a time, and larger chunks of highlighted words may become tiresome.

Highlight words by using:

* boldface characters
* italics
* colors
* upper case letters

Text Content

Clarity

Writing for the web means that you have to be a good organizer. The information that you will place on your page for the whole world to see must be carefully organized. Use words that make sense to the audience. Use simple, meaningful language.

Check your spelling (use a spell checker). You wouldn't want your readers to encounter something like "Our software provides state-of-the-art soultions that "?.

Use correct grammar. Make sure that you know the difference between "it's" (contracted form of "it is" or "it has") and "its" (possessive pronoun, 3rd person singular), between "you're" (contracted form of "you are") and "your" (possessive pronoun, 2n person singular and plural), or between "they're" (contracted form of "they are"), "there" (adverb of place, antonym of "here"), and "their" (possessive pronoun, 3rd person plural). These examples may sound a bit "too much", but you'd be surprised how often they occur.

Avoid word play (puns), euphemisms and metaphors: you could be taken literally. Also, think of your non-native speaker audience. If you have to have abbreviations in your text, use only the standard ones. If you use your own abbreviations, explain them (between brackets), at least once in the beginning.

Quantity

Since web users are usually people in a hurry, they need information that can be seized easily. Limit each paragraph to only one idea (topic sentences). Be concise: web readers prefer short texts, from which they can extract the information with minimal effort. Studies show that web reading is slower than regular reading by 25%. The information that you offer must be condensed enough to fit in one screen. Users don't enjoy scrolling too much. They want to get the information fast, so web texts must have half the word count used when writing for print.

Relevance

Do not overcharge your page with information. Provide only what is necessary. The text that you write for the web page must be relevant for the target audience, organized in an intuitive manner. The short bits of text that constitute your paragraphs must be self-explanatory, so that your readers will understand your point on the spot and will not require much mental effort to do that, or additional information to support them.

Style

1) Verbs
Use active verbs (provide, assess, implement, focus, validate, etc.) rather than passive ones (is being done, are solved, were built). Active verbs give a sense of vivacity to the text, which becomes more energetic and powerful.

2) Pronouns
Use "you" rather than "I", "we". Like this you will show readers that they are the target, and your text will have a greater impact on them.

3) Language
Use easily understandable language, with familiar, everyday words, short and simple sentences.
Avoid jargon by all means: jargon is usually technical or abbreviated and difficult to understand for people not in the profession.
Establish a balance between promotional (marketing) style and the useful information that you include in your text. For example, when writing a presentation web page for a product, it is understandable that it is meant to help sell the product.

Nevertheless, avoid marketing exaggerations and overstatements. Too much enthusiasm can be a turn-off. Refrain from using (too much) humor. All Web users have different perceptions on humorous instances.

4) Keywords
Identify the keywords in your text. Highlight them to add to the scannability of the text and to add to the probability of your web page being found much easier when searching the Web.

5) Graphics
Graphical elements must complement text. Insert only images that have relevance to the text, and avoid full-page graphics, as they can take quite a while to load and this gets users annoyed.

It is not easy to learn how to write for the Web in an appropriate, professional manner. In principle, if you respect at least the most important principles according to which this activity can be performed, you may find yourself on the right track. Whenever you have to write something for the web, remember that people may not want to spend long minutes or even hours to read everything you have to say on a particular topic. They do not have, or don't want to have, time to waste on reading long, exhaustive paragraphs, as they want only the "cold facts".

Web texts should be like the instructions for microwave food:

* Insert food in oven
* Heat for x seconds
* Serve

Users prefer summaries or "inverted pyramid" style texts. Start with the conclusion, and then continue with the details. Thus you are sure that if the users gets bored along the way and close the web page, at least there's something they have already read and from which they could actually benefit.

SEO Basics - The Good the Bad and the Worthwhile - Links

SEO Basics - Good Link, Bad Link

Your link profile is potentially the most powerful aspect of your SEO efforts, especially in the eyes of Google. Quality counts over quantity, but it is important to get a good list of well-balanced links pointing to your site. Diversification really is the key. Try not to concentrate all of your efforts on gaining links from one source, and similarly try not to gain them using a single method. A number of tactics should be avoided wherever possible because they either offer you no benefit whatsoever or your page may be penalized.

This article looks at the acquisition of links purely from an SEO standpoint and, aside from the really bad linking methods, if a link will provide good-quality, direct traffic then it is definitely still a good link and well worth considering. You will have to use your judgment on this, to a certain extent.

Good Links

Directory Links: Directories are viewed as being a very positive source of links by a number of search engines. Obviously, some directory listings carry much more weight than others and some directories are hardly worth the effort. Be careful to drip feed your site with directory links at first because it is possible that too many too quickly will see your site penalized until your link profile becomes more natural.

Start with the major Internet directories and consider getting links from free general topic directories as well as niche directories and also look at paying for inclusion in one or two of the seriously large directories like the Yahoo directory and business.com. As your link profile expands you can add more directories to gain extra weight.

Reciprocal Links: You may have read that reciprocal linking is dead. While it is true that Google and possibly other search engines now place much less weight on a profile that is crammed with nothing but reciprocal links they still have a place. Keep the number of reciprocal links you use down to a minimum and certainly don't base your entire link building efforts on this one tactic alone.

Again, balance is a big part of reciprocal linking but also of importance is relevance. Regardless of whether you offer a separate links or resources page, or you choose to include the links throughout your site you are still essentially endorsing the site. You will also gain much more credence from a link that is placed on a page containing information relevant to your own page.
Unique One-Way Inbound Links: These should pretty much be the staple diet of your link portfolio. An inbound link that is one way does not necessitate the inclusion of a link back to that page on your site. This can help to give your own pages the benefit instead of handing it out to your link partners. The more relevant and the more important that search engines deem the linking site to be the more weight they give that particular link.
Site Wide Links: Again, these should be used sparingly. Gaining a site wide link means that a link to your site or your pages is placed on a number of pages in a site. Search engines are known to give less weight to links that are procured on this basis but it does help to give your portfolio a more rounded appearance.

Press Release Links: Writing and submitting a digital press release can provide good links. Many press releases are used by other sites and industries related to your site and they may also be included on some major news websites. There are free press release distribution services available, but it is common to need t pay to make the link clickable and to use anchor text.
Article Links: Writing and submitting articles to article directories can provide a large number of links. Not only can you submit one article to numerous directories but each directory has the potential of generating a number of interested websites. These websites also publish your article (which includes an author bio section with your link). This can be a good way to get authoritative sites to link to you.

Community Links: Join forums and include your link in your signature. Post useful comments on other people's blogs and include your link as your username. You should, under no circumstances, spam blogs or forums and only include links on the sites that allow it.
Presell Advertising Pages: Some websites will allow you to include an entire page on their site. In most cases you will either need to pay to have the page written or you, or write the page yourself. Generally the website will also include other forms of advertising but as long as you choose sites carefully this can generate some excellent links.

Bad Links

FFA Sites: An FFA, or Free-For-All page, is one that allows anybody to post any link they like on the page. Typically they are not only useless to your cause, because the search engines ignore them, but they will not generate any natural traffic but may attract the spammers to your doors.

Link Farms: A link farm is a page that contains an excessively large number of links. Some say a page with 100 links directed out of that page is a link farm, but in all honesty it is unlikely that a page will yield much benefit for SEO or non-SEO with more than fifty or so links.
Off Topic: Off topic links are something of a bone of contention. They may offer very slight weight with some search engines because it is quite possible that natural links from certain websites would point to any number of pages on any topic. This appears in the bad link section because they offer very little positive benefit and your efforts would be best placed gaining on-topic links.

Unindexable: Purely from an SEO standpoint, links that cannot be indexed by search engines are completely useless. A search engine spider must be able to follow the link to find your page and provide you with any benefit for that link. Avoid any page that offers to display your link in a frame, or includes the noindex or nofollow robots.txt tags. However, bear in mind that a site that is currently not being indexed by search engines may be a new site. It could also grow up to be the next Google.com and take your link with it.

Conclusion
Your link profile should appear as natural as possible so vary the good links as much as possible and avoid the bad links. Collect links from as many sources using as many tactics as possible and use keyword variants in your anchor text. By following these guidelines you should be able to improve the appearance of your link profile and, therefore, improve your search engine rankings.

Hope this helps you get your site noticed!

Dan