It’s a good question—and a really common one too—what does make writing for the web different than writing for print? Let’s dig right in and take a look at the major obvious differences…
Web Writing Utilizes Keywords
Writing for the web successfully must take full advantage of keywords and keyword phrases. This means each article or page of online content to be written should take into account a specific theme that fits well and use appropriate keywords strategically in order to help improve optimization for those specific search terms.
Writing for print might use catchphrases or buzzwords, but this is quite a bit different than using web keywords. We’ll tackle keywords in depth very soon in their own upcoming article.
Web Writing Is Focused, Short & Sweet
Rule number one of writing for the web: Get to the point and keep it there. Say what you need to say, but don’t add layers of fluff. And keep sentences and paragraphs as brief as possible…like this one.
While this same strategy is often utilized in print writing to a certain degree, it’s vital to use it on the web—while print writing can often get away with more traditional structure.
Web Writing Can Be Effectively Conversational
Now the degree that you’ll want to deploy this tactic to your website will differ depending on your theme and audience—but more often than not, it’s perfectly safe to be conversational with web writing. Just talk naturally to your web audience through your written words. It’s that simple.
On the other hand, writing traditionally for print often means de-personalizing as much as possible. Why not take advantage of the web to be conversational? After all, proof shows that it keeps the attention of the majority of readers more so than writing “just the facts.”
Web Writing Must Be Easy To Scan
Web visitors naturally visually scan a page quickly before they devote their full attention to taking in the message conveyed through the writing. Because of this, web writing must include plenty of methods to catch the eye and grab attention. These methods include using sub-headings, whitespace, lists, and more.
Now compare this to traditional print—newspapers for example. What do we do first when looking at a newspaper? We scan the headlines for articles we might want to read in depth, but the articles themselves are not necessarily “scan-able.” While writing for the web, we can take the liberty to change this idea and make it easier for the reader to find what they’re interested in.
WSpider Can Help You!
Need assistance writing for the web (or just don’t have the time or desire to do it yourself)? If this is the case, please just contact us. WSpider is a full-service search engine marketing firm located in San Jose, CA. Our goal is your success!
Comments