Make content scannable with descriptive headings, concise writing, and formatting. A conversational tone, active voice, and simple language aid clarity, scannability, and readability. Calls-to-action enhance engagement.
Following web writing best practices is essential for the experience of all users. By enhancing readability with clear formatting, concise writing, and a consistent, professional tone, you can establish a positive perception of your website and brand. This can even more important if you are writing for specialized, professional audiences.
Tailor your writing to your user’s level of understanding and engagement.
When writing web content, you should:
Descriptive, relevant HTML h1 headlines summarize the content and help users quickly identify the topic of the Web page. This allows users to capture the main idea of the content and whether it is relevant to their needs.
Use HTML h2 to h6 subheadings. They are hierarchical elements, helping to organize and structure content. Proper heading hierarchy improves content readability and search engine optimization (SEO), enhancing user experience and search engine ranking.
Users want fast answers to their questions. They quickly look through information by just skimming and scanning instead of reading. During an average page visit, users only read up to 28% of words. Guide readers through the content.
Use straightforward words and sentence structures that are easy to understand. It makes your content easier to understand for a wider range of users, including those with cognitive or reading difficulties, non-native speakers, and those with limited literacy skills.
Write using a conversational tone (that suits your users). It can help improve user experience by creating a sense of connection between the reader and the content, making it more memorable and enjoyable to read.
Users are often looking for specific information or answers. Streamline content by using clear language, organizing information effectively, minimizing unnecessary details. Format your content in a clear, concise and even predictable way to help users find what they need quickly.
In active voice, the subject performs the action, resulting in clear, direct, and engaging communication. This helps to make your writing more direct and engaging, improving user experience by making it easier for users to understand the message you are trying to convey.
For example, changing The book was read by me (passive) to I read the book (active) emphasizes the doer of the action and enhances the readability and impact of the sentence.
Explaining abbreviations, acronyms, numeronyms, initialisms, and contractions (at least once) at the beginning of a Web page is vital to ensure clarity and comprehension for all readers, including those who might not be familiar with the abbreviated terms.
Providing sources is crucial to enable verifiability, uphold accuracy, and maintain credibility by allowing readers to access reputable references that support the information presented. This also enhances user experience by fostering trust, offering a deeper understanding, and empowering readers to make informed decisions.
Improve user experience by providing a clear path for users to follow (e.g. to make a purchase or subscribe to a newsletter), making it easier for them to achieve their goals. A good CTA is clear, specific, action-oriented, and may even create a sense of urgency to encourage users to take the desired action.
Add images, videos, audio, animated timelines, animated or interactive charts and graphs, polls, etc. to break up long text content. This makes content more scannable, more engaging and accessible, resulting in improved user experience, particularly for users with visual or hearing impairments.
Content authors can optimize their writing also for search engines by incorporating relevant keywords naturally into the text, creating high-quality and informative content, and following SEO best practices.
When writing web content, you should not:
Do not write headlines that do not accurately reflect the content of the page or contain no useful information at all. It hinders users in quickly understanding the topic and relevance and find relevant information efficiently. It is also detrimental to SEO because search engines rely on relevant, descriptive headlines to understand the content and rank it appropriately in search results.
Do not create dense, overwhelming blocks of text without using subheadings, bullet points, or other formatting techniques. These are difficult to read and comprehend, discouraging users from engaging with the content and making it harder for them to find the information they seek.
Do not use jargon, (unexplained) technical terms, or overly complex language that may be difficult for users to understand.
Writing in formal or academic tone may be dry or unengaging. Using passive voice or convoluted sentence structures make it difficult to understand the message.
Do not write misleading content like vague or clickbaity headlines that do not accurately reflect the content of the page and are not factual or reliable. Also promotional language can come across as misleading, pushy or insincere.
Providing clear calls-to-action (CTAs) is essential because they guide users towards specific actions, facilitating goal achievement, improving user experience, and enhancing engagement by providing a direct path for users to follow.
Providing sources is crucial to enable verifiability, uphold accuracy, and maintain credibility by allowing readers to access reputable references that support the information presented.
multimedia or visual elements is crucial for improved user experience and accessibility as they break up text, engage diverse audiences, enhance comprehension for visual and auditory learners, and aid users with disabilities like visual or hearing impairments in accessing content more effectively.
Most common questions and brief, easy-to-understand answers on the topic:
Making content scannable can be achieved through the use of headings, emphasizing important parts of text with bold and italic, bullet points, and short sentences (up to 20 words) and short paragraphs (up to 5 sentences).
Streamline content by using clear language, organizing information effectively, minimizing unnecessary details. Using clear and succinct language while organizing content effectively: avoid unnecessary words, use bullet points, headings, subheadings, and focus on key points. Utilizing short paragraphs, eliminating redundancy, and prioritizing essential information also contribute to concise and easily digestible content.
Use everyday language, avoiding jargon or overly complex terms. Address the reader directly using "you" to create a sense of personal connection. Incorporate relatable anecdotes or examples to make your points. Employ contractions and shorter sentences for a casual rhythm. Imagine explaining the content to a friend, maintaining a friendly and approachable, yet professional style throughout.
Apply active voice by ensuring that the subject of the sentence performs the action, making the writing clearer and more direct. For example, changing "The book was read by me" (passive) to "I read the book" (active) emphasizes the doer of the action and enhances the readability and impact of the sentence.
Sources and recommended, further resources on the topic:
License: Writing for the Web by Jonas Jared Jacek is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only. To give credit, provide a link back to the original source, the author, and the license e.g. like this:
<p xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"><a property="dct:title" rel="cc:attributionURL" href="https://www.uxgem.com/articles/writing-for-the-web">Writing for the Web</a> by <a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" property="cc:attributionName" href="https://www.j15k.com/">Jonas Jared Jacek</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="license noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>.</p>For more information see the UXgem legal page.
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