Writing For The Web

A 1-day Training Course in Web Content Copy Writing — W4W

Writing For The Web Training Course Overview

This writing for the web course aims to provide web content authors and contributors with the fundamental skills and knowledge to express themselves effectively in the web environment.

W4W (Writing for the Web) is not merely different from copywriting in most ‘push technology’ contexts (e.g. print and broadcast). In many cases, it partially reverses the roles of the reader and writer; overturning the cherished maxims and ‘best practices’ of writing for traditional media.

In such cases, it is typically the reader who constructs the narrative, by sampling textual ‘objects’ — provided by writers — and assembling it from multiple sources via hypertext. This kind of reading can be facilitated by writing techniques developed in traditional PR and journalism, — for example — but they need to be tweaked and not, merely, re-purposed.

In addition to highlighting the distinctive features of web audiences, web content, web page structure and web writing styles (registers), this W4W course also addresses the practical tensions, trade-offs and workarounds involved in realising different web writing objectives.

Course contents — 1 Web writing is very different

The Web is ‘Pull’ Technology
- Few drive-by readers
- Users need to actively seek your content
- Users need to find your content
- Then, they need to navigate to it
- Users rarely read your narrative
  - They extract sought-after details
  - Use extractions to complete actions
- Findability and scannability are critical
  - Core writing goals — not ‘options’
Many different reading contexts
Every page contains many texts
Audiences tend to be wider and narrower
- ‘Layered’ pages cater for general …
- And specialist audiences, simultaneously
- Hypertext — branching & confluence
- Of general and specialist audiences
Interactive and user-generated texts
Users need and follow paths to texts
Users follow different paths within texts
Users have different expectations and preferences
- Expect control over what they see/read
- Impatient — get what they want, get out
Users have clearer objectives
- Get information, carry out transactions
Constraints: web standards
Constraints: accessibility legislation
Metadata and search engine intermediaries

Course contents — 2 Scannability

What is scanning and what motivates it?
- Getting the gist
- By sampling representative snippets
- Depends on ‘landmarks’ and emphasis
- Saves time, narrows focus
- Separates wood from trees
Shortcut/avoid scanning
- Invert the narrative pyramid
- Short intro summaries
- Satisfy scanning goals instantly
Writing context-free titles and sub-headings
So scanners:
- Get meaning — without preceding text
- Know they are in the right place
- Or that they are on the right path
- Instantly know where to focus attention
Longer headings than print or broadcast
- Provide the context in headings
- Buzzwords and landmark text at the start
Chunking text
Using sub-headings, sections, call-outs, etc. to:
- Create — ‘at a glance’ — globs and snippets
- Bitesize, digestable, messages
Modularity
Every text unit (sentence, para, item, subhead):
- Make sense, without lots of context
- Becomes a building block
- For users to create their own narratives
Emphatic text (key words, phrases, and links)
Used to:
- Aid scanning
- Take users to their point of interest
- Avoid distracting users from key messages
Styling, writing and placing emphatic text
- Links at end of sentences + paragraphs
- Connecting text snippets to …
- Call-outs, list of links, etc.
Using list, tables and graphics
To simplify or skip narrative
Turning narrative sequences or series into lists
Structuring documents as ‘Trees of threes’

Course contents — 3 Reduce Text — Edit Down

Web pages don't have to be short
But each unit of text should be concise
Motivations for shorter, concise, snippets:
- Say what you mean — and nothing else
- Aid scannability
- Save the user mental effort
- Save your time
- Avoid stress-inducing complexity
Candidates for deletion, e.g.
- Unnecesary adjectives, qualifications
- Background, history, potential consequence
Splitting paragraphs
Using paragraph lead-ins
Convert paragraphs into bulletted lists
Reduce paragraphs to single sentences
How to make every paragraph shorter
- … and more easily scanned
Delete the marketing fluff
Use hypertext to move detail elsewhere
Relevant — but non-essential — detail
Move secondary material to background
Move repeating info into tables, charts, graphs
Avoid cutting to the point of ambiguity

Course contents — 4 Reduce the mental effort

Don't make me think
No matter how specialist the text …
- The more difficult it is to read or scan;
- The less useful it is
Keep it simple stupid — kiss
Put critical conclusions in the first paragraph
Put the key conclusion in the first sentence
Writing one idea paragraphs — how to
Make the point in 1st sentence of every para
- Eliminate lead-in and lead-out sentences
Avoid sub-clauses entirely — if possible
If that's not possible …
- Put necessary context first — and briefly
- Put caveats last
Avoiding noun chains
Always prefer active verbs to nominalisation
Avoiding unintended double entendres
When to use pronouns — and when not to
Write actively, recognise+avoid passive mood
Write positively
- Avoid all negatives, epecially the doubles
Text length
- Shorter does not always mean easier
- Techniques for managing longer texts
Scrolling and printing issues

Course contents — 5 Meaningful menus and links

Menu text
- Rarely a copywriter's responsibility
- But always a critical concern
- Determines the findability/usability
- Of copywriter text
Menu labels and headings
Should always answer the questions:
- Where am I — in relation to my goals?
- Where have I been?
- Where do I need to go?
- How do I get there — or, at least, nearer?
Menu labels are often too short
- To meet graphic design criteria
- Losing meaning/usability for the reader
Headings and title phrases should be reused
In menu labels, to:
- Show/confirm navigation paths
- Support scanning by previewing content
Menu labels should be reused in:
- Titles, sub-headings and summary lists
- To aid navigation and scanning
Make menus narratively meaningful
- Show when nav broadens/deepens topics
Multiple routes to the same info is good …
- But only if labelling is consistent
- Repetition vs. synonyms in labelling
Inline links
Different types of link — link functions
- Making sure link labels match the function
- And fulfill it
Avoiding ambiguity
- E.g. if the link label is a person's name …
- Does it go to their biographical details?
- Or does it email them a message?
Telling the user what they will get from a link
Making links the emphatic part of a sentence
Emphasising the target's topic
Planning link labelling and position
… before writing
Adding, labelling and positioning inline links
… to pre-written texts
Using links to advertise content changes
Link boxes and sidebars
- Boxed link labels differ from inline link labels
- Problems with separate boxes of links
- When to use them — and when not to
Link policy
Outbound (offsite) links
- To make your text more useful
- To enhance your credibility
Maintaining and updating links

Dates for Online courses

Dates for Dublin

Thursday 20 Mar 2025 Ormond Quay €545 Book
Thursday 24 Apr 2025 Ormond Quay €545 Book
Thursday 29 May 2025 Ormond Quay €545 Book

Dates for Belfast

Thursday 29 May 2025 Assembly Buildings £450 Book
Thursday 3 Jul 2025 Assembly Buildings £450 Book
Thursday 7 Aug 2025 Assembly Buildings £450 Book

Course Objectives

By the end of this course you should be able to:

Understand what makes writing for the web so different
Write website copy/content which is meets the needs of your users
Write different types of web text appropriately
Order web copy/content to speed readers to their ultimate goals
Structure web content/copy for onsite and offsite readers
Write modularised content to share and re-used with minimal duplication
Write texts which are differentiated and help user search
Write content which lets users access content in the way that suits them best
Write easily maintainable and revisable content
Minimise confusion among readers
Minimise unwanted queries from readers

Target Audience

Anyone writing for the web, whether on public websites, private intranets, or web application interfaces.
Copywriters
Journalists
Marketing and communications professionals
Public relations (PR) staff
Web designers

Training Pre-requisites

A reasonably good command of written English is expected
Technical knowledge of HTML, XHTML, CSS and other web standards is not required

Training Style

This writing for the web course is quite intensive — i.e. it tries to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short period of time.

Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of the time is devoted to practical exercises, working through real world issues with student's own web texts.

For obvious reasons, most of the texts acually written by students will be comparatively short, but exercises and discussion will definitely cover whole-page and large-text issues in web content copy writing.