Writing content for a website

Have you ever read magazine story online? It's not easy. This is due to the fact that articles meant for print don't translate well to the web. The rules for writing for print are different from those for the Internet.

How is the web different?

Dpi

The average computer monitor has a resolution of 96dpi (dots per inch). If you compare that to a print out from a laser printer which will have a resolution of 600dpi, or that article you wished you had read from the magazine page? They are printed at upwards of 2400dpi! So it's not hard to work out why text is hard to read on the screen and can put a lot of strain on your eyes. I also often find myself reading slower and taking in less when I read from the screen.

Layout

As web designers and authors we also have less control over how the article/web page will be displayed. The reader has a lot of options on how they browse the web and your site. For starters they have a choice of browsers, screen resolutions, but also the small details of how their favourites show on the screen.. on the left the top? All these affect how your article will show. We need to keep this in mind when deciding how the article will display on the screen.

It's not all bad news for us web publishers though, we do have the advantage of linking, we can link to other web pages, photos, videos, sounds, anything that might be useful for the reader or your point.

So how should we write?

Write less

Due to the strain on readers most articles longer than 1,000 words will more than likely turn off your audience, and they will skip over the article. You should condense your writing to include only the crucial points and leave everything else out. Writing well for the web forces you to present only the necessary content and leave the rest out.

It's called a web “browser” for a reason…

"Teaser quotes are also a good way of getting the reader intrigued."

Research has shown that most readers tend to scan and browse over an article before reading. Therefore we should make it easy for the user to find what they are looking for and to make it clear what the article is about. Breaking the article into smaller chunks with clear headings for each section is a good way of doing this. Lists are also very useful for getting information to the user. Teaser quotes are also a good way of getting the reader intrigued and giving them a small taster of what the article is about. This is demonstrated on many news sites and a great example of this technique is the BBC website.

Links

Our main advantage over print articles, these should be used early and reasonably often. Linking gives us the chance to provide the reader with extra information on any subject the article covers. Common things to link to are reference pages, news articles, example sites, downloads, forms, anything that will enhance the reading experience. Links give the control to the reader, who can choose whether to follow the link or ignore it. This allows you to reference examples without forcing the user to read through it all and breaking up the flow of your article.

Print

The user may wish to print your article. (I do this all the time, in fact I printed this article off to read through it!) You should make this option easy for the reader, normally with a print version link if the article is image heavy or by designing your site so it prints well. You could use my CSS print version example as a way to print articles. Try to make sure you have a link to where the article is located so if the user does enjoy the read they can find there way back to your site!

Published 04.12.07