Break up the Content on Your Web Pages
It is harder to read text on a monitor than it is to read it on paper¡ªbe aware of that. While you might write a 150-word paragraph for print (and it would be fine) don¡¯t do the same online or the paragraph will look daunting. It will look like hard work and will strain your visitors¡¯ eyes. Break that block up into three or more paragraphs. Make the text on your pages appear to be easy to read.
It¡¯s not just about taking some print text and then breaking it up into smaller paragraphs. Do that, and your text won¡¯t read naturally, it won¡¯t flow. When writing for the web, you need to write in a way that breaks naturally into shorter sentences and paragraphs.
Beware of Long Copy When Writing for the Web
While in some niche areas of online commerce, people do write incredibly long pages, this won¡¯t work for most sites. The long copy page is designed to push, persuade, and sometimes fool people into buying products and services they may not even want or need.
If this is what you have in mind, good luck. But most of us want our visitors to come back time and time again. When writing for the web, most of us want to build trust and a long-term relationship.
For a site that is easy to navigate and truly useful for the visitor, break the site up into pages of a reasonable length. If there is a huge amount of information on one page, figure out how you can best break it up into two or three pages. And, when thinking about how to do it, keep the user¡¯s experience at the top of your mind.
Keep your web content relevant
A web site is not the place to devote huge blocks of text to saying how wonderful you and your company are. It is not best used as a promotional medium, like a press ad or brochure. Visitors come to your web site not so much to learn about you, but to find something that THEY want.
*Writing for the web means writing with a different attitude, addressing different priorities. Talk less about yourself, and more about whatever it is your visitors are interested in.
Break up Your Web Content with Subheads
The use of subheads is a great way to break up large bodies of content online, however, make the subheads useful. Think of your reader scanning the page, looking for the specific piece of content he or she is interested in. Help them find that information with informative, useful subheads.
Remember, not everyone will read the whole page. Many will scan down, looking for one particular piece of content. When writing for the web, help people find it with strong subheads.