Top 6 Online Writing Tips

Online writing is different than print writing. Make writing for the internet concise, clear and actionable. Readers prefer short articles that help them get something done; readers don't read the whole text online (only 20-28% of an online writing is actually read).

There are six key ways to write for the internet:

1. Scan-Ability Is Readability Online
2. Passive Voice May Help SEO And Readability
3. Titles, Subjects And Headings Need Inverted Pyramid Extreme
4. Vocabulary and Keywords Should Be Old Words Placed Carefully
5. Acronyms And Abbreviations Need Mark-Up
6. Numerals Are Better In Online Writing

Online Writing - Scan-Ability Is Readability Online

Users scan more than read online, and they scan in an F-shaped pattern. This is a heat map of where readers' eyes look while reading online (red areas are most viewed areas, yellow next most, blue least most viewed; click image to enlarge):

(from Jakob Nielsen's excellent article on Banner Blindness).

Readers scan the first sentences of paragraphs to decide whether to read the rest of the paragraph or not. The first sentence should describe the paragraph, giving readers clues as to whether the rest of the paragraph will interest them. The first two words of each paragraph should be the most information-carrying words.

Even deeply interested and engaged visitors often do not read all of an article's text as the first 30 seconds of this video show:

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Online Writing - Titles, Subjects And Headings Need Inverted Pyramid Extreme

Titles, headlines and subheadings all need the most meaningful and significant information first, toward the beginning. Many forms of content are often viewed out of context and in contexts outside the publisher's control:

• titles
• subject lines
• headlines

Microcontent must have an even more exaggerated inverted pyramid style than the larger content they designate; the first word or two should be the most important and meaning imbued words in titles, headlines and subjects.

There has also been some interesting discussion about the use of numbers in headlines.

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Online Writing - Numerals Are Better In Online Writing

For numbers, use digits, not words, online. Users can more easily read and understand these:

• 24 Reasons Why Marshmallows Are Awesome
• There are 50 states in the United States.
• On August 1, 2008 at 6:18:22 PM GMT the US national debt was about $9,535,720,238,424.97.

Than these:

• Twenty-Four Reasons Why Marshmallows Are Awesome
• There are fifty states in the United States.
• On August first two-thousand eight at six eighteen and twenty-two seconds in the evening, GMT the US national debt was about nine trillion, five hundred thirty five billion, seven hundred twenty million, two hundred thirty eight thousand, four hundred twenty-four dollars and ninety seven cents.

Numerals are more scannable than words.

This is part 6 of Top 6 Online Writing Tips
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Web Design in Different Browsers

Sometimes it's useful to see a website in many browsers to be sure the design looks good to all of the site's visitors. Short of installing many different browsers on different computers, there are some websites that can help.

Keyword Research & Suggestion Tools

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool can tell you advertiser competition and search volume for a keyword and its synonyms. There is an interesting round-up of tools for choosing keywords on seobook.com.

Cheating Color

In a web page design, cheating colors is a way to make colors appear to be the same, when in fact they are different. Depending on context (e.g., background, surroundings, etc.) a color may _appear_ different when in fact it is the same as another area on a web page.

For instance, a light color on a light background may look slightly lighter when it is a small area (e.g., small text) than it does in a large area (e.g., header text). Making the smaller area actually darker, can make the two different areas appear to be the same color.

Similarly, but in reverse, a dark color on a dark background may look better if lightened in small areas relative to bigger areas.

CSS Cheat Sheet

A handy cheat sheet for CSS that will print out on one page (on most systems).

Nice and Free CSS Templates

If you're in a hurry to make a site, these templates can save you time.

Color Palette Generator

This tool makes a color palette out of any image on the web. It can be very useful if you're trying to match a web site to an image you are using on the site.

VisiBone Webmaster's Color Lab

You can test out web-safe colors to develop a color scheme that will look the same on different browsers and platforms.