Website content – tips on writing for the web

Website content and individual web page content requires a different approach to writing compared with writing for traditional media such as newspapers and magazines. Website content is particularly unlike writing in books and the type of writing we are used to doing for school essays and business reports.

Writing content for the web
There are two primary requirements for writing website content and web page content:

(1) Paragraphs must be relatively short and the overall web page content must be broken up with subheads and some graphic elements such as photographs or other illustrations to help show the reader quickly what the content of the page is about.

The reasons for this are two-fold. In the first place, reading content on a computer screen is tiring for the eyes and long-winded paragraphs will quickly lose the attention of your website visitor. Additionally, web surfers are notoriously impatient and have an instant gratification attitude to the Internet. They will not wade through long paragraphs such as are common in books, reports and essays.

(2) Website content and web page content must be written to incorporate the keywords or search terms that people use to research or look up information on the Internet. For example, Two of the main keywords for the web page content you are now reading on this provinsys.com site are website content and web page content – they may be the terms you searched for on Google, for example, that lead you to this page.

The importance of keywords
Assuming that you want your website content to be found by web surfers, the use of relevant search terms in your writing for the theme of your web page content is critical. This applies equally to whether you are building a traditional static website or a blog, such as with a WordPress or TypePad platform.

If, for example you are writing website content on donuts, you should be aware that people will search on Google and other search engines for the information they want by using many, many search terms or keyword phrases related to donuts. Keyword search tools will show you the terms people are using for that topic.

One of the best tools for finding keywords relevant to your web page content theme is the free WordTracker search term tool [http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com WordTracker also has a paid version if you want to expand your use of keywords beyond what the free WordTracker tool offers.