Writing for the Internet: The 3 Golden Keys
Posted by Anthony James Goolsby in Internet MarketingI often see new copywriters, when they complete their training, begin by writing for the Internet. A mistake I see, however, is they fail to keep in mind the key differences between writing for the Internet and writing for print. We will cover some of these differences here, and I promise if you keep these “golden rules” in mind as you write for the Internet, you will achieve much success.
There are three crucial differences between traditional publishing and writing for the Internet:
Audience
Format
Lifespan
These differences are important and must be taken into consideration writing for the internet.
Audience
Any writer must consider their audience. But audience consideration is even more important when writing for the Internet. The basics won’t change (like identifying who your primary target audience will be, for example), but there are some huge differences in other areas.
First of all, your audience is somewhat guaranteed in a traditional publication. Most people, once they have bought a magazine or newspaper are likely to at least give each page a cursory read before setting the item aside. Not so online. When writing for the Internet you must always keep in mind your reader can leave as easily as a click of the mouse. People don’t have a lot of time to waste so you must remain on target and highly focused at all times. As the writer, if you do not appear to be delivering good content the reader will simply go elsewhere… fast. Please do not take this to mean you must cater to the lowest common denominator; you don’t. Your audience is not stupid. But you do need to know your targeted audience and how to deliver for their wants and desires.
Format
Another important point when writing for the Internet is that many online readers are what I call skimmers. They scan your copy quickly before committing themselves to reading the entire thing. It is important to write clearly and concisely. Use punchy headlines and subheadings, as well as solid introductions and conclusions, as these are key points for skimmers.
Trying to mimic traditional magazine articles or offline printed documents is a common mistake that I see in new writers. Actually there are some big differences. Because a reader will read the Internet differently from ‘physical pages’, like say in a book, writing for the Internet requires some different techniques. The entry point is one of the most important. Did you know that a search engine might send readers to a point somewhere in the middle or end of your document? Now, if you wrote concise and accurate content, readers could very well go back to the beginning of your article to read it properly. There is a way to avoid this altogether though, that will keep the ’skimmers’ skimming. Try breaking longer pieces of text into a few stand-alone sections that fit together as a whole document or even separate documents if looked at in the same manner. (This article, broken into individual stand-alone segments, serves as an example.)
Lifespan
Finally, an important difference between traditional publications and writing for the Internet is lifespan. While the apparent lifespan of many electronic documents appears to be short-lived, this is simply not true. In fact, I would argue the exact opposite is more the reality. Newspaper and magazine articles in print are only current for a day, week or the month of their publication, but then are archived on the Internet where they may frequently reside for years. So while it is important as a writer to be fresh and current, also keep in mind that your reader may access your words at some undetermined point in the future. (In other words, try not to be too topical. You may severely date your article in the process.)
Keep these three key points — audience, format, and lifespan — in mind when writing for the Internet and I promise you will achieve greater writing success.
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