Writing for online
Preparation
Before you start writing, ask yourself the following questions:
- For whom do I write?
- Target group
- Foreknowledge
- Information requirement
- What effect do I want to achieve?
- Inform
- Enthuse, attract
- Both
- What does the reader want to know? What is the reader's perspective?
Tune in to online reading behaviour
Web users scan the page according to an F-pattern. Respond to this scanning behaviour and make a text scanable:
- Header and intermediate headings together form the red carrier (cohesion)
- Put the Core Message in the lead
- In the lead, answer the w-questions: who, what, where, why, when and how
- Make the lead AIDA:
- A = Attention: arouse attention with e.g. a question, dialogue or quote
- I = Interest: create involvement
- D = Desire: appeal to the reader
- A = Action: call-to-action
- use White lines to separate text parts from each other
Paragraphs- max 50 words
- start each paragraph with a core sentence explaining what this section contains
- use signal words to support the core sentence ('because', 'so', 'in short')
- indicates relationship between sentences and phrases
- stimulates to continue reading
- Listing with bullets
- easily readable
- directs the eye
Review
Read your text and ask yourself the following questions:
- Does the text contain a header, lead and a body?
- Does the header describe the subject??
- Does the lead answer the w-questions?
- Is the body scannable?
- Is the offer clearly formulated? What problem does your text solve?
- Does the reader get an answer to his/her questions?
- Is the reader's perspective central?
- Is the reader helped further with a call-to-action?
