Writing for Web

You may spend hours carefully crafting the content for your website, but the sad truth is that most visitors will read just 28 percent of the words on a page. And more than half of your visitors will spend less than 15 seconds on your page. Web users also don’t read words from left to right, but rather they scan the page looking for phrases or keywords that capture their attention.

Write with the End in Mind

Before you begin crafting content, determine the goal of your web page/website. Do you want your visitors to do something, such as apply for admission? Do you want them to seek more information? Be clear about how you are using your site so you can craft an appropriate content strategy.

These guidelines based on industry benchmarks to help you write compelling content that visitors will actually read, and ultimately take the action you want them to take during the precious moments they spend on your site. Using best practices for writing for the web will result in:

• Lower bounce rate (the percentage of instances that people immediately leave your page after arriving there)
• Higher click-through-rate
• Increased authority/credibility
• Longer dwell time
• Better readability

While there are a seemingly endless number of SEO tools, software, and strategies, the truth is that improving your content is the best way to rank higher on search engine results pages, increase traffic, and drive new users to your website. Once viewers are on your site, your optimized content could lead to more conversions (actions taken that you want your users to take).

Here is a simple checklist of SEO best practices:

• Write valuable, useful content on each page. Avoid fluffy content that provides no real information for the user.
• Don’t pack the content with keywords or phrases you think people will use in searches. Integrate those phrases naturally.
• Use bullet points, numbers, bold type, short paragraphs, and headers for better readability.
• Avoid using the same content on multiple pages. Search engines view this as a technical issue and have a difficult time differentiating which page to rank.
• Keep in mind word choice matters. Put yourself in your viewers’ shoes: what words do they associate your topic with. For example, research shows that the word “major” outperforms “program” in website search results by those looking to see what majors a college offers.

• Avoid acronyms in title pages
• Titles should be short.
• Never use periods or exclamation points.
• Do not use a, an, or the as the first word (e.g., Economy of the Second Empire, not The Economy of the Second Empire), unless by convention it is an inseparable part of a name (e.g., The Hague).

Don’t make generalizations without providing context or factual information to support your claims.

The best way to attack web writing is to offer bites, snacks, and meals (in that order).

Bite

Powerful headlines that draw attention.

New RoboBee Flies, Dives, and Swims

Snack

Concise summary of your content in one to two sentences.

Hybrid robot could perform search and rescue missions, research studies, environmental monitoring

Meal

The full content of your message presented in a scan-friendly manner (or linked to, depending on your website design).

Full content RoboBee news story.

Scan-Friendly Text

Reading and scanning behaviors are different online. Research strongly illustrates that people scan web pages and phone screens. They rarely read content word for word.

• Highlight keywords (But be careful not to overdo it—overemphasizing dilutes the impact of your message.)
• Use meaningful subheadings (not clever ones). They act as the informal outline of the page.
• Said another way, topload important information. Start with the content most important to your audience, then provide additional details.
• Cut the word count in half whenever possible.

• Focus on one idea per paragraph. Readers will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph.
• Use the inverted pyramid style of writing. Tell the reader the conclusion, results, or outcomes first, followed by the most important supporting information, and ending with the background.
• Use bullet points for optimal readability.

• Hyperlinks should explicitly describe what users can expect to find when they click on the link. Use the name of the website the link goes to.
• Short, concise link titles are best. Links should not exceed 60 characters.
• Do not use URLs as link text.
• Avoid using click here. Visually impaired visitors often use auditory browsers, which will read the text aloud rather than display it visually so the link should be meaningful when read out of context.
• Links to PDFs should use the title of the PDF as the hyperlink.