Strangely - I thought I had already written this posting - but apparently not.

It only recently occurred to me that even most web professionals are not quite 'getting' the difference of writing for print and brochures and actually writing searchable, indexed content for the web.

There are no hard and fast rules, and it is something that you pick up along the way, but a few tips will give you a head start. To get you going you may like to download my website content notes, which gives an overview of web content and the role it plays in presenting and promoting your business.

There are plenty of different types of writing, but mostly I deal with brochure site copy, which is similar to writing for print but cleaner and more concise. There is no need to dumb down the core information, but try and communicate it in the simplest terms possible in order to reach the widest audience. You can do this by writing conversationally, like this, rather than like a lecture. It makes it easier to read, and also easier to understand.

It is important to keep a clear image in your head of why you are writing this copy and of your market, using phrases and terminology that they would use themselves. If you are writing for a specialist market, feel free to use specialist terms but also the terms that people use everyday, even if they aren't in the Oxford English Dictionary, as these are the terms your visitors will use to find you. The more specific you are, the more useful this is to the visitor.

These key phrases are the terms that Google can latch onto, it sorts through your text (and images) and analyses how well each page applies to certain search terms. This is not to make it more difficult for you, but to make the search engine more effective. So when somebody types in 'scuba diving in mayo' they get a list of results that relate to the subject, rather than a forced result created by a web designer trying to fool the search engine into giving them more traffic. It's all very clever.

Remember, Google indexes pages not sites, so it is possible for you to cover a broad range of key phrases with a big enough site, so whichever route users travel to your site, you are still visible on the web.

Continued...

I consider this Search Engine Optimisation part to be one of the most important factors in writing for the web, as without it you will find it difficult to attract the right kind of visitors to your site. Traffic is all well and good, and looks nice on the web statistics, but if the people visiting your site don't find what they want, they will click Back and visit the next person on the list.

So, if we do search 'scuba diving in mayo', we expect to either reach a page that will tell us about it, or at least link us to a page that will give us more information. If the phrase is used as part of a list or in passing, like 'you can go scuba diving in Mayo', you will find that users will scan the page and see very quickly that this isn't for them and click Back.

Writing the bare minimum in this way does not help. This user may not visit again, or remember your result as being a false positive. However, if you had expanded a little, offered more information on where you can go scuba diving, clubs, contact numbers, equipment hire etc, you would have turned your page into a far more valuable resource, and encouraged the visitor to see what other information you have on your site...

BTW: If anybody has reached this page that is actually looking for 'scuba diving in Mayo' I do apologise, I have used this merely as an example to illustrate a very specific search term.

Other points to consider are clear headings and the ability to scan or skim the page to quickly access the information they are looking for, as reading off the screen is much harder and slower than reading printed text. You can simplify things by keeping paragraphs short and focussed, and also using bullet points or numbered lists to outline your main points, like this:-

1. Informative, clear text
2. Simple, easy to understand phrases and words
3. Clear layouts and headings

There is much more to go on here, and I will re-visit this subject at a later date, but for now I shall leave you with some more of Sage Lewis's pearls of wisdom.

Writing For The Web

Just Stop It Week - Text Stuffing