• It is more difficult to read from a screen  
• Web users tend not to read full articles but rather short chunks of the page in search of what they need
• Readers tend to be impatient and want fast access to information

The result is that readers read more slowly and find it less 
comfortable than reading from paper.

The reasons for this lie partly in the nature of the media. Print is a linear medium, we generally start to read at the top left and continue to the bottom right. The web is non linear, we expect hyperlinks and jump frequently, both within pages and to other pages, reading what we need and then moving on, often very quickly. 

Good writing for the web will be clear, concise, relevant, scannable, consistent and error free. 

Behaviour of Web Users

You can take it that most web users are impatient most of the time. Few settle down in front of the computer for a good read. Most web users are searching for a particular nugget of information and will filter out just about everything else.

When they open a page web users do not start reading, they quickly scan the page to see if it seems likely to have the information they are seeking. If it is not immediately obvious that it does they will probably leave. Only a few will take extra time to look very closely, after all there are millions of other sites out there.

The fact that web access in many areas is paid for by time adds a certain urgency to all this.

Web Friendly Writing

If you accept that web users are going to behave like this you must also accept that they are simply not going to sit and read your brilliant and original 2000 word essay from start to finish to see if it contains the information they want. You will have to adapt your material to an online situation if it is not to sit there forever totally ignored.

Conciseness is the name of the game here. You need to edit your content ruthlessly, break it up into short sections and keep both sentences and paragraphs shorter than you would for a printed article. 

These tips will help.

• Use a brief style of writing with much less use of adverbs and adjectives than would be the norm for print
• Keep to the point, if additional information or an explanation seems necessary for some readers consider providing a hyperlink
• Use short paragraphs of no more than 8 to12 lines, shorter if possible.
• Keep sentences short; never use one sentence where two would do.
• Think about the different ways you could present information. Would a diagram or a bulleted list work better than a paragraph? If so it will add variety, attract the user’s attention and may also reduce 
  the amount of text needed.
• Edit, edit and edit again. Delete unnecessary words or sentences; consider how things could be rephrased more concisely.
• Extract information from your text and display it separately. For example if you had a series of articles about flowers you could have a standard section at the top of each listing Latin name, common names, flowering season, colour, habitat and so on. This 
  would both lighten your text and provide users with a lot of information at a glance. Web users like information at a glance!

Creating ‘scannable’ pages

Don’t fight the web users’ love of scanning pages: facilitate it. One or more of these techniques may suit your site or part of your site. 

• Use frequent and meaningful subheadings within your text 
• Highlight words by making them bold or italicized but don’t underline them unless they really are hyperlinks. Be careful not to overdo this though, it can look like shouting.
• Use a contents list at the top of a long page, linking to the appropriate part of the article. You will see this at the top of glossary pages where it is possible to jump to a specific letter or on FAQs pages where the questions are listed at the top.
• Use a summary of the article, either on the same page or a page linking to the actual article. If you choose the latter link back to the summary at the top of the second page.
• Use ‘pull quotes’ in larger text in a margin or within the article 
  itself.

Writing Quality and Style

Correct spelling, grammar and punctuation always matter and this is as true of web pages as it is of print media. It is a very good idea to have someone else read your text, nobody is perfect and someone else will invariably spot errors you missed. It can be useful to print out your pages; we all read printed text more easily and you will spot mistakes you missed while reading from a screen.

Choice and consistency of style is also important. Some sites are formal in nature, most business sites would fall into this category, whereas others, such as sites aimed at football fans or computer games players for example, suit a far less formal style of writing. The subject of the site will largely dictate the choice of style but it should be maintained consistently. If there are several contributors of written content to the same site then there really is a need for one person to act as editor in order to apply some sort of ‘house style', unless of course the whole point is to give an outlet to different voices.

Navigational Text

Choose the text you use on Location Indicators and Navigation Controls with great care. It needs to be concise, clear and explicit. Using puns or clever metaphors is generally a bad idea, there is too much cultural variation in web users and it makes your users work to discover where the links go. 

So called ‘Mystery Meat Navigation, where images without text are used as navigation aids, is an overused and plain bad technique which causes frustration in users rather than admiration for the cleverness of the designer.

Using Hyperlinks

Links within your text are an extremely important part of writing for the Internet. Whether the links are to another place in your site or another site entirely the destination of all links should be immediately clear. Linked text stands out from surrounding text and is very important to users scanning a page. 

As a general rule if you mention companies or organizations their names should be links, the first time they are mentioned at least. Similarly if you refer to another article at your site a link should be provided to that article. Saving links for the end of the article, in the hope of preventing users from leaving your site, is both ignoring the point of the Internet and futile.