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Top 7 Tips For Good & Effective Web Writing

Posted: 01 Feb 2013 10:49 AM PST

Writing is definitely an important skill that most people cannot acquire very easily. Many people write, but not everyone is a good writer.

People who are managing an online business need to cope with a lot of writing exercise. No matter how big or small their business might be, they still need to do a some small or large bit of writing for their online or freelance business.

Top 7 Tips For Good & Effective Web Writing

You do not necessarily need to be technical with your writing approach with the freelance business only, even in general cases there is a demand for comprehensive and professional web writers on the internet.

What matters is how effectively do you communicate and present your writing to the audience, and more importantly how convenient do they find reading you.

Lets have a look into some important tips that shall help you write well for an online audience and become a good web writer.

1) Formatting For Clarity

Lets look into this the other way. You were a reader first then you probably became a writer. How awkward did you find reading long chunks of texts merged together without any kind of formatting ? It seriously is irritating. Online readers choose to skim through the lines only rather then reading all the text. You should always keep this thing in mind when in the process of writing.

You should always break your text into small paragraphs. Remember that a good readable paragraph on the web will consist of 3 to 4 lines only.

Try to make each paragraph a combination of short and long sentences with no paragraph exceeding the limit of 5 sentences at most.

When giving away a list of information, try and arrange them in bullet points. Also use sub-headings to guide your reader through the sea of text. It makes the reader read with better and faster understanding.

2) Avoid Inappropriate Length Of Sentences

As mentioned earlier in the post, online audience only choose to skim and scan through the text quickly. They will stop reading if they find the sentences to be unreasonably lengthy.

An optimal sentence shall consist of 15 to 20 words. If it exceeds this limit, your reader will lose the interest and move on.

It is not much of a problem to get hold of this problem. You just need to break your text down to smaller sentences. try and be concise when expressing your thoughts. One idea can be expressed in one sentence and if it seems to be a long one, you can break it into two.

Remember to keep switching the sentence length in a paragraph to give a better reading experience. Too many short sentences together or too many long sentences together, both lead to dis-interest of the reader.

3) Avoid Writing In A Passive Tone

Generally, we all are very prone to catch the passive voice writing style as it is very easy to write in such a mode. However for online readers, writing in a passive voice is considered a crime.

Writing in active voice provides a better space to connect to your online readers effectively. You just need to avoid referring yourself or your audience in a third person. Write as if you are having a conversation with you reader.

4) Irregular Flow

It is infact a fundamental rule to keep your writing material connected in a logical order and proper organization in any piece of writing. This definitely applies in case of online writing too. If your ideas and thoughts are spread haphazardly without a logical link, the reader will keep on wondering what point do you want to make.

Build a logical structure of your piece of writing. Give away one notion in one short paragraph. Also try to use sub-headings. They make the text easier to read.

5) Respect The Readers

The important thing here is to understand the fact that there lies a very narrow gap between respecting your reader and insulting them. Helping them out with certain information in a convenient tone might be respecting, but being overly helpful can be offensive at times.

You should always avoid undermining you reader's skills but try to be friendly to them. Using 'You' and directly addressing to them makes them feel you are talking to them at an individual level, but do not get patronizing.

6) No Call To Action

There is always a purpose behind whatever you write. Web writing is mostly about convincing your reader to take a certain kind of action after reading your web content. This action might be a response in the form of a comment or buy something that you are offering to them.

You must add a call to action at the end of your content. This might be askign them to share their thoughts about the article in the form of comments or share your content on their social media profiles.

If you are selling somthing, You should add a call to action at the end like 'Buy Now' or 'Sign Up'.

7) Write & Improve Your Approach

The latter seems simple above all the rules. Once you know what to avoid and more importantly how to avoid, it becomes very simple to improve.

Begin practicing above mentioned rules in your online writing or emails. Proof read after you are done writing with the above tips in mind. After some practice you will be automatically adjust yourself in the right and perfect frame of writing.