What would you expect to learn on a good 'writing for web' training course?
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Tailor Your Writing to the Digital Landscape
A well-written website goes beyond mere information delivery; it creates an immersive user experience.
And writing for the web requires a unique set of skills. It is very different to writing an essay, a book or even a social media post. This is because the engagement is different.
Taking a web writing course can teach you how to adapt your writing style to capture and engage online audiences more effectively amidst the digital noise, boost your search engine optimisation and enhance your user experience.
Here are some key areas your should come away understanding:
Understanding online readership
Before you write anything, you need to understand who you are writing for. You need to understand their behaviours, expectations and preferences when reading online.
Think about their attention span, the language they use and their motivations.
Ideally, you should have conducted some detailed user research before writing anything.
Web writing principles
It sounds completely ridiculous, but users DO NOT read websites! No matter what or how you write it, they will not read it from top to bottom like they may read a book. They scan!
Therefore, the principle of writing for web is to make it short, scannable and engaging. Use plain language and avoid jargon. And, include a call to action! What do you want the user to do next?
SEO writing
Understanding search engine optimisation best practices are vital to crafting good website copy even if your goal isn’t about attracting audiences to your website for that search term. (Although I don’t know why you wouldn’t!)
Learning how to conduct keyword research and how to integrate these keywords into your web writing will help you rank higher on search results, but equally vital, it will also improve your readability and user engagement.
Structuring content
Your website structure should be organised. A well-organised site has a proper information hierarchy and content flow. This makes it easier to navigate and easier to read.
This also goes for your pages. These need to be structured with an ordered hierarchy of headings and subheadings and bullet points to make it easy to scan and move through the site.
Writing for different online platforms
Not all digital content is digested in the same way. The tone, content length and writing styles need to be adapted for different types of website content because they have different audiences. Understanding the different nuances of writing for blogs, news posts, case studies or calls to action will keep the reader’s attention.
Writing for User Experience (UX)
Feels like I shouldn’t have to say this, but the website has not been created for you, it’s built for the user. Prioritising user needs and designing content for those needs will instantly make your website more effective.
Good web writing will incorporate usability principles and user-centred design into writing.
Formatting and visual elements
Unsurprisingly, web design plays an important element in website content. When designing your website, the typography and font choice, spacing and how you add visual elements like images, infographics and video will impact the effectiveness of your content.
Working with your designers to create page or content element templates will improve your user engagement.
Web Accessibility
Understanding the importance and impact of writing accessible content and learning how to incorporate these into your writing will improve your web writing skills.
This isn’t just about screen readers, this is about ensuring your writing reaches a diverse audience. Adding alt attributions, proper heading structures, simple language, use of visual enhancement aids like icons and the importance of mobile-friendly content can all improve the ease at which your information can be understood.
It might surprise you, but you’re generally aiming for the reading age of only 8 years old!
proofreading and maintaining your site
Any indication that your website is poorly maintained will reduce the trust you have with your users, and adversely impact your rankings with search engines.
Ensuring your site is free of spelling mistakes, broken links, duplicate pages, excessive redirects and so on will indicate to the user and search engines that your site is current and trustworthy.
Analytics and optimisation
Unfortunately, the job is not finished when the writing is done and the page is published.
Understanding how your website is performing is essential for making it better. By tracking and analyzing website metrics and listening to users, you can see how well your content is doing and what needs improving.
To sum up
In a digital age where attention spans are short and online competition is fierce, the ability to write captivating and persuasive content for the web is a valuable skill.
Investing in developing your content writing skills, you'll soon be able to create a website that people love to visit and enjoy using, again and again.
If you would like to learn more about how to engage your users with good content
Get in touch