People read differently on the web. They read 25% slower and they on average read less than a quarter of what is on the page so you need to get to the point quickly.
Use Inverted Pyramid Writing
What is the Inverted Pyramid?
It is a writing method of starting with your conclusion first. It means you should put your most important information first when writing for the web. So basically build your content in the following order:
- Information they must have for your communication to be successful first
- Followed by additional information that is helpful but not crucial
- Then information that would be nice if they had it.
Make sure to address the who, what, where, why, and how first. Most important and necessary information should go first.
Inverted Pyramid writing has many benefits:
- Readers can easily determine if they want to read your entire article.
- Readers can stop reading at any point and still come away with the main point of your article.
- Also when you front load your content the first few sentences on your web page will contain most of your relevant keywords, helping your SEO.
Example of Inverted Pyramid Writing:
"Writing for the web is different to writing for print. You need to give people what they want quickly. Write for your target audience, keep it short and simple and get rid of jargon. Put your most important content first, use the inverted pyramid structure and write in the active voice.
When your school teacher taught you how to write longer passages of text, you were probably taught the traditional academic writing style. If you used this style when writing for the web, users would leave your page long before reading the most important information in your conclusion.
When writing for the web, invert this structure and use a journalistic writing style – the ‘inverted pyramid'."
As you can see this gets to the point quickly and gives the reader everything they need right up front and then goes into more detail.