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Writing for the Web - Details

Planning your draft: - Who are you writing for?

As with all writing, you should sit down, plan your approach and prepare to draft, write and rewrite. The magic ingredient in successful web writing is "relationship". If you can catch the reader’s attention by your content, style or delivery, you are half way there. To travel the rest of the way, you need to address the reader personally, by putting yourself in their shoes and considering why they are at your site in the first place! Once you address this issue, you can empathise with the reader and address their needs.

Now that you have considered the reader’s "needs", try to consider their "comfort". The size, font, spacing and line length will determine how comfortable the text is on the page. For this reason it is crucial to preview your text before publishing.

Tip: Never write across the width of a full page. It is very tiring on the eyes. In addition, write lots of short paragraphs with one idea in each headed by a short title or related phrase.

Warning: Too much variation in fonts, sizes and colours are tiresome and distracting on the eye. Stay with two (or at most three) font faces and two (or at most three) font sizes.