For your website, content is king. A continuous feed of good-quality content will please not only the search engines, but your site’s users. Sometimes it only takes a good SEO content strategy to place a site at the top of its industry and the rankings. All it takes is fine, meticulous care of every piece of content posted to your site.

It is a good idea to consult a professional for the main bulk of your content as part of your search engine optimisation plan. You can talk to our experts at SEO Consult about content. However, site owners will now and again come across the situation where they need to write something. Whether it’s place-holder content or a yearly note on the blog, when this situation occurs you need to know how to write for the web.

You may already be familiar with the idea that writing for the web is very different to writing for print. Strangely, most people don’t notice the difference until they are forced to view the two together. When that happens, the differences are stark.

The main difference is the way in which the text is read. With print, the reader is usually in a comfortable position, both physically and mentally. They are content for the writer to take them by the hand and lead them through the text, absorbing information through the various devices the writer uses. Long-winded narratives work in print because they dress up the information the reader is absorbing. ‘Painting a picture’ is a fairly common simile for what print writers do.

On the web, there isn’t time for the paint to dry. Users click on a page for a specific reason, even if it’s one they’ve just decided on. Nobody wanders the net aimlessly. Users are also in a less comfortable position physically, as the computer screen itself is less comfortable to look at. Users can’t wait for someone to fill their picture with colour. They need a photograph they can take in at a glance.

The urgency of the user is the main thing to keep in mind when writing content for the internet. There is a reason keywords are such an important part of SEO. It’s not just the search engines that scan text looking for important phrases. Key tools in your internet writing arsenal should be:

• Bullet points
• White space around paragraphs
• Bold or otherwise highlighted words
• Short sentences, with short paragraphs
• Lots of subheadings: This isn’t traditional, but subheadings break down text into bite-sized chunks.

These things can’t be used alone because too much information slows the reader down. As you see above, it takes concentration to scan a bullet point list. The last point was easier to read because it had a little more information. If you have a point to get across, throw it at the user, then expand.

Packing your information around these things ensures the reader will easily absorb it. Remember, internet writing needs speed. When you have important information to impart, make it stand out.

Get Involved