The Internet is unlike no other medium, and the way content is used is very different than what you’ll see in a book, a newspaper or a magazine. With these new ways of reading also come new ways of writing and creating content. So, what should a web copywriter be mindful of when producing content for an online audience?

#1 – Keep it short and to the point – According to online usability guru Jakob Nielsen, web content should be 50% shorter than its print counterpart. This is because people tend to read more slowly when they are taking in content from a screen. They also find it much less comfortable to read than the printed page. A web copywriter also needs to get to the point of the article or web content quickly. People have a nasty tendency to click away if they don’t find what they’re looking for fast.

#2 – Be conversational - The web is a pretty informal arena, and people generally expect content to be far more conversational in tone than they might expect in a newspaper or magazine. Engaging users with a more conversational tone of voice also helps to build trust between a website and its users. Keep the language simple, but don’t patronise your readers. They’re smarter than you think.

#3 – Use meaningful headers – Jakob Nielsen also found that readers tend to scan through on-screen text, picking out key words, sentences and segments rather than reading right through from start to finish. To aid users when they are scan reading your text, introduce a number of sub-headers to break up the text. Avoid ambiguity, keep headers punchy and to the point, and provide a succinct summary of the text that follows.

#4- Be accurate – This might be a given for all kinds of writing, but the transient nature of web content seems to have encouraged some into thinking that grammatical errors and spelling mistakes are acceptable. They’re not. Plain and simple. Just last month, businessman Charles Duncombe revealed that an analysis of his hosiery website, tightsplease.co.uk, showed that sales were cut in half by a single spelling mistake. Just one was all it took to cut his online sales in half. So check your content for technical accuracy and spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck.

Are you a web copywriter? What rules would you add? Let us know in the comments box below.

Steve Kellas teaches web copywriting to businesses across the UK

If you’ve been following Derryck’s recent UK copywriting experiment, you know that he’s looking to find out if copywriting alone can influence search ranking.

Now, I have to admit something to you.

I am not a UK-native copywriter.

Shh. Don’t tell Derryck.

Just kidding. He knows.

You see, I’m Canadian, and although I’m a native English speaker and copywriter, I had a lot to learn about UK copywriting when I immigrated.

English isn’t always English

This might be apparent to some, but there are vast differences between my English and the ‘real’ English. Copywriting in Canada is different to copywriting here.

I have two children. I tell people they are bilingual: Canadian and English. For some things, the difference is small and subtle (we both use ‘our’ in ‘colour’ for example), but for some expressions, the difference is an ocean apart. Here’s a quick list of English to Canadian translations for those who think there isn’t much difference.

UK → Canadian
Cooker → stove
Nappy → diaper
Garden → yard
Vegetable patch / flower bed → garden
Woolly hat → toque (rhymes with ‘fluke’)

And those are just a few. There are dozens of terms that don’t have the same meaning between the two countries. ‘Cheap’ for example.

When is a copywriter not a UK copywriter?

When they have no connection to the country but a television and a book.

My wife was born and raised here, so I got to know the local expressions pretty well by virtue of our relationship. Even so, I still had a lot of listening and learning to do when it came to my copywriting job. I still get things a little wrong, but for the most part, I think I write more like a UK copywriter now than a Canadian copywriter.

My mom (mum) says I speak differently, but that it’s my expressions and not my accent that sound different. Thanks mom.

A lot of those content-factories that Derryck was talking about are staffed with writers that not only don’t live here – they’re not even native English speakers! So, a lot of what they produce (cheaply) is hollow-sounding or irregular, or at worst completely unintelligible. Cheap UK copywriting is, well…cheap.

I salute the search experiment

Because I worked hard to become a copywriter (and I’m still working hard at it), I applaud Derryck’s experiment. I think you can’t have cheap and still have a quality brand. But, maybe I’m wrong too.

What do you think? Do you think we can just use auto-blogging software or $1-per-hour writers and get anything worthwhile out of it?