5 tips to writing for the web | Budding Writers League Ltd

Writing for the web and writing for a print medium is very different. No, we don?t mean the difference in formatting. We mean difference in writing styles. 1,500 word essays are all very well and good for the monthly print edition of National Geographic, but no one on the internet is going to concentrate for more than 300 words.

Here are some handy tips to writing for the web.

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1. Keep it simple.

Most of the folks who go online are of the YouTube generation, and have attention spans and memories similar to those of goldfish. In order to capture that audience, you must present them with something short, sweet, and easily digestible, or they?re going to go elsewhere in search of something better ? and easier ? to read.

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2. Write for the layman

Keep your jargon and technical writing for journals. The online audience doesn?t know much, and doesn?t care about much. They?re not going to pick up a thesaurus to search for the meaning of a big word you used; they?re just going to walk away. Keep your vocabulary to small and simple words, especially when writing for a general audience, and you?ll find your hit rates will go up.

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3. Use pictures, lots of them!

We?re spoiled by sites like Tumblr and Twitter, but doesn?t a picture speak a thousand words anyway? Not only do pictures provide some relief from your block-of-text antics, you can also add witty captions to them, to up the ante of your articles.

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4. Use hyperlinks wisely

One great thing about writing for web is that you can always direct your audience towards further reading. All this without the pain of citing sources APA style, with footnotes to boot. If you?re referencing something obscure or less mainstream, simply include a link in the body of your text. Like so.

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5. Responding to your audience

This might just be the best thing about writing for the web. You can respond to your audience immediately, without the need of an intermediary, a fanmail sorter, or the like. However make sure you reply with the same wit and language that made up your article, or you?ll be called out as lazy, or worse, a farce!

Source: http://www.buddingwriters.org/bwl/5-tips-to-writing-for-the-web/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=5-tips-to-writing-for-the-web

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