Tips for Web Content Writing
Headlines: Rules for writing good headlines
1. The page headline should describe the content of the exact page
a. Page headlines should be a clear guide to the content below
b. Give the topic, key message or purpose of that page
2. Every web page should have only one topic
3. Every page headline should be unique.
4. Don’t center your headlines
5. Subdivide the page into smaller chunks with sub-headlines: most people are skim readers
6. Front load the headline with keywords, be positive.
7. Headlines and sub-headlines should work like signposts, clearly showing what lies ahead.
Know your online readers:
1. Readers like pages that look orderly, are neat and contain white space
a. Keep left margins straight and add white space
b. Tricks to add white space; short sentences, short paragraphs, bulleted lists, sub-headlines,
left-aligned links
c. Don’t use italics or continuous capital letters
d. Don’t center any text
e. Don’t underline anything but links
f. Left align all test with ragged right margins
g. Use short paragraphs
2. Most people are skim readers they don’t read but rather look at:
a. Main headline
b. Top of the page
c. Link-text
d. Words near an image
e. Sub-headlines
f. The start of a paragraph
Hyperlinks:
1. Where to place links in written content:
a. Start of a paragraph
b. List
c. Headlines
d. Bookmarks
2. Avoid link splatter: links that appear randomly in a paragraph. Link-splatter causes:
a. People see nothing but links
b. People take longer to read text
c. Cannot control where the links will appear, they could wrap
d. After you return to a page difficult to find where you left off reading.
3. Headlines can be hyperlinks: they may be followed by short chunks of text
a. This is often used on home page and index pages.
Writing in Plain Language:
1. Documents are easy to read if they have:
a. Short sentences, about 16 to 20 words on average
b. Create lists within a long sentence; a bulleted list
c. Use short words and don’t use technical language or jargon unless you know your
audience can understand it.
d. Use active verbs
e. Use punchy positive verbs, they get the message across.
f. Use short paragraphs
g. You writing; you and your appear quite frequently. Speak directly to the reader.
2. On a web page the summary should be 1-2 short sentences.
3. Use the same word for the same thing.
4. Negative language can depress, confuse the reader. It can cause grammar mistakes
a. Avoid 2 or more negatives in one sentence
b. Avoid negative questions
Writing for Search Engines: Search results are based on keywords
1. Why you need keywords
a. People type keywords when searching, therefore it is very important to know your reader.
b. Search engines find pages with matching keywords
c. Search engines create a summary from text that includes the keywords, and show the
summary in the search results
2. Key places for keywords, search engines give more weight to words in three places
a. Headlines and sub-headlines
b. The first sentence or two
c. Hyperlink-text (and words nearby)
3. Invisible text that is very important for search results:
a. HTML page title
b. Page title
c. Alt text for images
4. Important: Don’t overload web content with key phrases, that’s known as keyword stuffing and
is treated as spam.
Powerful Summaries:
1. Every page must have a summary straight after the headline
2. Put the summary in the very first paragraph
3. Structure the content in chunks:
a. Put the content in logical order starting with the page headline and summary
4. Start with a summary not an explanation of the page.