Traditional writing is difficult to read on a visually-focused medium such as the web, even if it has received all sorts of improvement from a qualified writing software. According to statistics, people tend to read electronic text 25% slower than printed ones, making onscreen reading a much more involved undertaking. While this probably don’t matter to short, 300-word articles, this can take serious significance when you’re reading long materials, such as books and multi-page reports.

For that reason, most people on the web tend to favor “browsing” pieces of content, instead of actually reading them. Rarely will people sit down and pour through ten pages of discussion on HTML, choosing to skim the material for the important points. As such, making your writing friendly for this type of reading has evolved into an art form – one that allows you to reach farther and wider into your potential audience.

How do you make your writing scan-friendly?

1. Use descriptive headlines that inform the reader about what’s in the content.
2. Use descriptive subheadings.
3. Put your conclusion upfront, both as a way to make sure it’s quickly understood and to pique the reader’s interest.
4. Use short sentences and paragraphs.
5. Use itemized lists.
6. Highlight or underline important words and phrases.

Want to use keywords more effective in your web-based writing?  Here are a few good things to keep in mind.

1.  Always refresh your keyword lists. Just because last month’s research showed you a particular set of profitable keywords, that doesn’t mean they remain the same way now.  The field of keywords is one of the most dynamic components of web copywriting.  Don’t let yourself stale in this end.

2. Use your main keywords in your title. What’s the fastest way to alert your reader as to what a piece is going to be about?  By having the main subject keywords in your title, of course. As a side benefit, the search engines love it too.

3. Vary your keyword phrases. Use synonyms and similar terms to refer to your keywords throughout the text (use a writing software for help if you’re stuck).  Repeating the same things over and over is not just bad writing practice, it makes your piece irritating to read.

4. Sprinkle your keywords. Have your keywords appear throughout the piece.  They help remind your reader what the main topic is about, making them especially helpful for longer texts.

5. Choose strong keywords. Strong keywords aren’t just the ones that readers are searching for; they’re also the ones that give the reader a clear picture of what the piece is about.  Make sure you choose ones that meet both these criteria for best results.

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of writing opportunities are available online, you can use this list as a handy (though incomplete) reference:

• Sales copies.  Websites that sell stuff always need them.  There’s a wide variance too, from ultra-long sales letters that usually end up in landing pages to soft-selling blog posts that pretend to be impartial.
• Product descriptions.  E-commerce websites will always need product descriptions with a soft sales bent to draw customers into their fold.
• Press releases.  Like all forms of media, many news sites and up-to-the-minute blogs draw a lot of their information from press releases.  Naturally, you won’t be writing for them, but for the thousands of service and e-commerce sites online.
• Business cases.  While you may not encounter them in your regular routine of checking Facebook and Twitter, business cases form a good chunk of documents that are available online.  Many companies with an online presence use them for the benefits of their customers and prospects.

Those are just a few samples of writing opportunities you can find online.  Believe me when I say, they don’t even touch the tip of the iceberg. If you’re trying to build a writing career with the help of your accurate grammar checkers and writing software, it would serve you well to see what may be available from the web.

People Don’t Read Webpages

It’s the single most common argument for fostering a difference between the web and traditional media.  Not that people don’t read webpages, per se, but they tend to scan them, only paying full attention at interesting parts.

Don’t even try to argue with it – innumerable studies have been done on the subject.  One of the most prominent of these reports, performed by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen, found that 79 percent of test users always scan an entire page, searching for things that might pique their interest.  Only 16% of all test subjects read them word per word.

This fact highlights several things that are a must for web writing:

• easy-to-scan format (short paragraphs, bulleted items, highlights on important items)
• the use of relevant keywords
• meaningful headings and sub-headings

Your Readers Are Always Busy

Magazines and newspapers are usually read with plenty of time on the reader’s hands – during transit, while eating breakfast or in bed.  Websites, on the other hand, are usually looked at while doing other things – writing a spreadsheet, engaging in IM conversations and browsing Facebook.  As such, capturing and keeping their attention is much more challenging.

On the web, your readers are always busy.  Have a string of misspellings and you can lose their interest (yep, should have run that spellcheck software).   Use a confusing passage and they’ll be back at YouTube.  There’s always something better to do, so don’t give them a window for it.