Tips for Writing Effective Web Copy

Though the web is still maturing people still make the mistake by thinking that copy written for print can just be transferred over to the web.

This isn't the case. While writing styles between print and web are similar in terms of grammar and punctuation, the presentation of information on the Internet has to be quite different or it's likely to be passed over by potential readers.

With more and more people flocking to the Internet in search of information, it's important that your web site provides them with something they can use as opposed to rambling filler.

The following are some guidelines to follow when crafting articles, blogs and other content for your readers so that they'll keep coming back for more.

Get to the Point People read magazines and newspapers as much for entertainment as they do for information gathering. However when they're surfing the web, they're usually looking for something specific. It's vital that you start giving them the meat right off the bat or they'll likely look elsewhere.

Remember that attention spans are always decreasing, so you only have a few seconds to grab a reader's attention. Skip the fluff and get to it.

Use Strong Headlines Just like in print a strong headline can be all that it takes to pull someone into your piece. Now I'm not talking about the kinds of cutesy headlines you see in some newspapers, but rather headlines that incorporate a piece of vital information that your readers are looking for.

Use Short Paragraphs Remember those short attention spans? Well people don't like large, unbroken pages of text on the web anymore than they do in print. The difference is that people are more likely to sit down and leisurely read a lengthy newspaper or magazine article, but simply blanche when confronted with too much copy on the web.

This isn't to say that people won't read a lengthy article online, you just have to know how to present that information so that it's easier for the reader to get through.

If you're faced with large amounts of copy, try to arrange to have it flow over onto additional pages as opposed to making the reader scroll forever. This can be a little hard to judge with all of the different monitor sizes on the market, but a good rule of thumb is that most monitors can comfortably display 500 to 800 words depending on their size before you have to scroll down a page.

Subheads, Bullets and Block quotes Web readers are notorious

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