Guidelines, tips, and hints for writing effective web content.
Writing for the web is completely different from writing an essay or a paper. Users visit your website with a specific task in mind, and most web readers will scan the page to find the specific piece of information they're looking for. When developing your content, it's important to keep your users' tasks in mind and write to ensure you are helping them accomplish those tasks.
Plain language benefits everyone - from people with dyslexia to non-native speakers. Writing content that is short and easy to read makes text easier to skim. The audience for your content may dictate the technicality of your language, but generally, avoiding jargon will make content more welcoming.
The following is not an exhaustive list, but bearing these tips in mind will help you to write more effective web content:
- Use short paragraphs
- Use short sentences
- Avoid jargon
- Be direct
- Get to the point - your most important information should be at the top of the page.
- List resources in order of importance
- Use You and I/We (the user is 'you', the university is 'we').
- Use plain language and active verbs
- Split your text into chunks and use containers, bullet points and hard breaks
- Avoid needless repetition
- Expand any acronyms the first time they appear on a page.
- Keep focus - don't add less tailored information for the purposes of filling up a page or a tab
- Reduce your word count!
- Always include "white space."This is the empty space that surrounds paragraphs, images, and other elements on your web page.
- Use multimedia - an easy-to-read chart or graph can also do a better job of explaining a complex topic than text alone.
- Images can also help break up text, making your page easier to read.
- Use descriptive hyperlinks - if a vision-impaired person is using a screen reader, "History of Theatre lecture" will tell them about the content, while "click here" doesn't tell them where the link will take them.
Further reading
Books in our libraries:
Don't make me think, revisited : a common sense approach to web usability
Nicely said : writing for the web with style and purpose
Writing for multimedia and the Web : a practical guide to content development for interactive media