Tips for Web Site Copywriting

The most obvious difference between writing conventional copy and Web site copy is that the latter involves non-linear writing. An entire Web site can contain numerous Web pages connected to one another, and each Web page can contain limitless copy. Conventional print materials usually dictate the length of your copy; i.e., if a client asked you to write a brochure, you can determine how much copy you're going to write, how much time it's going to take -- and thus, how much to charge. But if a client asked you to provide copy for a Web site, you cannot determine the amount of copy you're going to provide or how long it's going to take. Procuring a Web site copywriting assignment requires you to ask the client different types of questions so you can charge accordingly and make your time profitable. Here are some tips.

Konradt, Brian S. Write Thinking (2001). Design>Web Design>Writing

Tips for Writers and Designers

Whether you're a home (page) maker, an e-mailer, or a web site graphic designer, these tips will help you be a better communicator on the Net. If you are mostly a browser and e-mailer, try the first few tips. If you're into making your HTML pages look great, everything here is for you. In case you're curious, you can learn a bit more about me as well.

Siegel, David. DSiegel.com. Design>Web Design>Writing

Top 5 Web Conventions (Writing and Design)

While following a list of guidelines will not provide you with nearly as much information as usability testing a prototype, this page presents five important conventions for writing and designing web text.

Jerz, Dennis G. Seton Hill University (2003). Design>Web Design>Writing

Top Seven Tips to Writing an Effective Blog

If ever there were a perfect tool for the corporate communication expert, blogging is it. Think of a blog as the 3D version of your capabilities, one in which you provide context and meaning to your work experience and expertise. So let's talk about how to blog well.

Weil, Debbie. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Two Different Approaches to Writing Web Pages

It took me a while to realize this about my own approach to web page writing, but I have two different ways of writing.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Use Old Words When Writing for Findability

Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won't find your site.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Search

Use Product and Service Names as Keywords on Your Web Pages

I am quite surprised by what I have learned about the effectiveness of product names as organic search keywords.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Metadata

Using the Web in the Writing Classroom: A Preliminary Study  

Popular opinion maintains that people should be able to locate, collect, and evaluate information on the world-wide web without any substantial instruction. To test this premise eighty students at four disciplinary divergent schools participated in a study to evaluate their performance in retrieving and assessing electronic information. While the author is willing to admit that changes in performance are likely to occur over time, the present study found students (and by extension employee) performance to be relatively poor.

Rubens, Philip. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Education>Web Design>Writing

Using Web Tools to Communicate about Risks to the Public  

Communicating health, safety, and environmental risks to the public and to the scientific, political, and business communities is a persuasive task as well as an informative one. The job is made easier if the assertions about risk can be backed up with empirical data. But risks are often characterized through the analysis of data sets containing thousands if not millions of measurements. Further, the collection of these data is often conducted by many research teams, and the results often appear in disparate portions of the scientific literature or regulatory reports. On top of all this, environmental, safety, and health data compilations are frequently massive. As a result, finding needed data can be difficult, and understanding it can be bewildering. Web tools are available that synthesize these data and present the information they contain in an organized, understand-able fashion. In doing so, they help risk communicators to focus their writing on a specific topic and to base their assertions on hard facts.

O'Hara, Frederick M., Jr. and Frederick W. Stoss. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Risk Communication>Web Design>Writing

Watch for the Moment When You Hit Your "Confident Writing Zone"

When you have written a few pages that came out easily, and are all in the same confident, relaxed tone, that's the time to sit back and see what you have done. Re-read those pages. Become intimately familiar with the tone and style you have adopted. And then...at least this is what I did...go back and edit your earlier pages, particularly those which no longer seem to ring true, or feel quite right.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Web Page Headlines - Keep them Clear and Simple

If a web page doesn’t have a clear, simple headline at the top, it should. A headline is the fastest way to help a new reader find out what the page is about. It’s a clue, it provides direction.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Web Site Copy is about More Than Keywords

For writers who focus too intently on keywords and phrases, there is a danger. A danger in optimizing your pages for good keywords? Yes, I think so.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Search

Web Text That's Worth It: The Six Most Underrated Types of Digital Copy

Digital copy is underappreciated, underrated and - astonishingly - still the poor cousin of the web relaunch process.

E-Consultancy (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Web Writing Guidelines Backed by Research

In the past, I have been bothered by the lack of a coherent summary of research on web writing. In November 2003 the problem was solved by the (US) National Cancer Institute, for the time being, at least.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Standards

Web Writing: Create Writing Flow With Four Uncommon Connectors

Connectors -- conjunctions, punctuation, and transitional phrases -- allow readers to process information promptly by creating balance and relationships between sentence parts. The connectors are performing the same work as verbs, objects, modifiers and multiple subjects.

Franz, Catherine. Klariti (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing

A lot of people in the weblog world are asking 'How can we make money doing this?' The answer is that most of us can't. Weblogs are not a new kind of publishing that requires a new system of financial reward. Instead, weblogs mark a radical break.

Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Weblogs Revisited: The Phenomenon of Public Digital Journals

Notwithstanding the fact that lexicographers have come up with definitions for blog, if you asked a few dozen bloggers what makes a blog a blog, you would probably get a few dozen answers.

Kissell, Joe. Interesting Thing of the Day (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture

Looking at blogs as rhetorical artifacts allows scholars to examine the ways in which they contribute to changing what it means to communicate online. To this end, the articles presented here view the blog through the lens of their social, cultural, and rhetorical features and functions. Through study of the language, discourse, and communicative practices of bloggers, the authors provide insight into weblogs as a means of representing and expressing the self, forming identity, facilitating student-centered learning, building community, and disseminating information.

Gurak, Laura J., Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff and Jessica Reyman. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Website Posture and Manner

The way a website presents itself to users is a key aspect of user experience. Effective websites don't interrupt user flow, which is guaranteed largely by posture (how the website uses available resources, particularly visual), and manner (how the website 'talks' to users).

Baker, Adam. Merges.net (2001). Design>Web Design>Writing>Rhetoric

What About the User?

When IT professionals meet to talk about Internet and Intranets, the focus is invariably on technology. Active Server, Java applets, browsers, cookies, XML, scripting, secure sockets, JDBC, push, etc. It is rarely that any attention is given to what makes good content. What does the user want? And most users are actually 'readers'.

HyperWrite (2001). Design>Web Design>Writing>User Centered Design

What is a Controlled Vocabulary?

Finding the right words to communicate the message of your website can be one of the most difficult parts of developing it. Our authors guide you through the concepts behind a well-designed controlled vocabulary and discuss the pros and cons of its development.

Fast, Karl, Fred Leise and Mike Steckel. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Writing>Controlled Vocabulary

What is Good Hypertext Writing?

There is more to writing than putting words next to each other, and there is more to writing hypertext than throwing together a bunch of links. When writing text, I have certain goals; when I come across text I dislike, there are certain reasons why I do not like it. You're about to read an attempt to describe these reasons and goals; it is incomplete, subjective, and honest.

Degener, Jutta. Technischen Universitat Berlin (1998). Design>Web Design>Hypertext>Writing

What Kind of Web Writer are You?

Web writers are divided up into two groups: content writers and copywriters.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2005). Articles>Web Design>Writing

What Makes a Weblog a Weblog?

Assuming a Wiki is a weblog-like system that allows anyone to edit anything (I know some don't) then a Wiki represents an interesting amalgam of many voices, not the unedited voice of a single person.

Winer, Dave. Harvard University (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

What We're Doing When We Blog

Every day it seems another article about weblogs appears in the press. At first, most of these stories seemed content to cover the personal nature of blogging. But more and more I'm seeing articles that attempt to examine the journalistic and punditry aspects of weblogs prominent in many of the so-called 'warblogs,' or sites that began in response to the events of September 11th

Hourihan, Meg. O'Reilly and Associates (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging