How to: write content for the Internet
Last night I went to a copywriting workshop in Cambridge which was being held by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, with the goal of hearing some expert advice on how to create the most attractive titles etc. While I was half expecting a lecture on the best use of language I'm quite glad that it was indeed a workshop of sorts - suitable for networking and generally sharing ideas.
I thought it was worthwhile mentioning some of the tips on the site by implementing them directly. So before I even begin let me draw your attention to the top of this article: an introductory sentence or two in bold is the first thing anyone will read - so make it obvious and punchy in order to draw people in.
Wondering how to break up larger posts? Making the first line a question and bold should do the trick, meaning "scan readers" can flick through your content and easily work out what each paragraph is about. Remember, large areas of unbroken text are daunting and users will react negatively (by leaving).
Why do subheadings make a big difference? There was no need for me to exemplify subheadings because I use them all around the site and it's clear the difference they make. They give structure to bodies of text and allow readers to skip areas of non-relevance if necessary.
"Did you know that referencing sex vastly increases people reading the entire article?"
The reason for pull-quotes referencing something sexual increasing the number of people who read the entire article is because the majority of users will see that "interesting" quote and attempt to find it in the content. A really simple trick that caters to the most basic human instinct. Not only do pull-quotes help break up the page but they offer another opportunity to highlight a key feature in the copy.
Aren't images more important?
Apparently not. Studies have (apparently) proven that web users focus on text more than they do images. However, captions (below images) are normally the first thing a user will read on a page - so don't forget to put captions in.
Conclusions
There was a lot more to the workshop than this but these are the basic concepts behind writing for the web. Some of these are tricks I've been using for quite some time, others are good ideas that I really should implement. I hope you find some of the methods useful because they really do make a big difference. Imagine this article as one big body of unformatted text and you will soon see the need for clever formatting.
The workshop didn't really discuss the use of language much, but I feel that's because language is too subjective to cover in an evening whereas it's more managable to discuss the better aspects of formatting. I hope this is useful to someone because a few of these notions are useful to me!
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