Writing for the Web Part IV

Writing for the Web: Part IV: Unique Aspects of Writing Web Content

In part one of this article, we looked at good writing, and at the different kinds of Web pages. In part two, we looked at the structure of a website. In part three, we looked at the significance and best practices for writing informational Web pages.

In this part, we look at the distinctive features of Web writing compared to print writing. These differences arise to a large extent because of the link between search engines and Web pages. So we will look at this link first.

Web Pages and Search Engines

Search engines are a unique feature of the Web. They send out robots to crawl the Web and bring back all the pages the robots find. Next the engines' indexers analyze the pages so brought back and index the pages, linking them to specific words found in the content on the pages.

When someone searches for a particular word or phrase, the engines can bring up millions of pages containing those words and phrases, in probably less than a second.

That is the context.

Now, businesses on the Web would like to get their pages indexed by search engines for the products that they sell. They hope that when someone searches the Web for these products, the engines will display their pages among the first few of the millions of pages. To achieve this result, however, you need to optimize the Web pages.

Web Pages Must be Search Engine Optimized

Optimization occurs in the context of specific words. Business websites contain Web pages in which they sprinkle their product related words liberally, so that search engines know that the pages are related to those products.

However, one problem is common in this context. Search engines display pages that contain the words the searchers use. People search for products using their own kinds of words, and the engines display pages containing these particular words.

The words that customers use for a product might be different from the technical or publicity jargon that businesses typically use to describe their products. The engines will not know that this jargon, and the simpler words used by customers, are intended to mean the same thing. So they might fail to display the business' Web pages when a prospective customer does a search.

So the first thing a Web page writer has to do is to identify the specific words customers are using to search for a particular product. The writer must then optimize the pages for these customer-friendly words.

When you write a print brochure, you don't have to optimize it for any kind of words. You just describe the product and its benefits, using jargon or simpler words.

Pages Must be Self Contained

In practice, different Web pages are optimized for different product-related words. The search engines can send a visitor to any of these pages depending on the particular search words used by the visitor. This means that a visitor can land on any page of your website.

That requires that your page be self-contained. Unlike a printed brochure, the reader is not aware of any previous pages that prepare the ground for the current page. Unless each page is self-contained, a reader might not understand in full what the writer is talking about.

So each Web page must briefly explain the context and proceed from there. The page might also indicate on which other pages additional information is available.

Each Page Must Provide a Bigger Picture

Each page on which a visitor lands must indicate what topics other pages cover. The visitor will not be able to access these pages unless links are provided to the pages.

The links must be to relevant pages. In the case of informational pages, a link to the sales page is necessary. Links to other informational pages (or sections), the About Us, Contact Us and other important pages are also usually present on these content pages.

On the other hand, on the sales page itself, links to other pages might be restricted. The business might not want visitors to the sales page go wandering all over the site.

Conclusion

Writing for the Web involves making each page somewhat self-contained, providing links to other relevant pages and optimizing the information pages for different product-related words (that Web searchers actually use). These are not the problems that you face when you write printed pages, and go to make writing for the Web somewhat different.

In the concluding part five of this article, we will look at some resources that can tell you much more about writing for the Web.

Writing for web Part 1 | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V