Writing For The Internet

As Shakespeare once wrote: 'brevity is the soul of wit'. Writing for the internet is all about brevity, or the appearance of brevity. To write for the internet you have to make an impact as quickly as possible. Your audience won't wait.

Never has the phrase 'bite sized chunks' been more apposite. Even if your message takes at least 5,000 words to convey, you must break it down, slice it up and make it appear shorter than it is. Writing for the internet is a challenge. But an exciting one.

In the beginning, the internet was all about text. There were no videos, few pictures. Connections were too slow for these luxuries. And people wrote in the same way they wrote articles offline. But it soon became clear that reading habits were going to change.

The reasons for this are debateable. Some people say it's because reading on a L.E.D. screen is more tiring. Others that our attention span is shortening. People grab takeaway facts when browsing and move on. Reading habits have changed and continue to do so. New devices like the ipad and smartphones are making a difference.

And it's not just the devices that are changing. Popular sites are having an effect. The social media site, Twitter, only allows you 140 characters per message (though it's possible to cheat).

So what are the techniques of writing good copy for the net?

As I've mentioned, keeping it short is the number one rule. But what if you're message is at least 5,000 words long? Well, if blogging, consider breaking it down to ten messages of 500 words each.

But it's not just word count. Grammar is changing too. Sentences are shorter, commas more prevalent. But you have to be careful. Short sentences. One after another. To keep the pace up. Again and again. They can be annoying, make the reader breathless.

Adverbs and adjectives can be a curse too. Don't get me wrong. These types of words enrich a piece of writing. But nothing slows down a reader more than the overuse of these words.

There are other technical considerations too. When writing for the internet, the internet needs to consider search engines. Or Google. As that has pretty much blown other search engines out of the water. 'Search Engine Optimization' is the watchword of internet marketeers. You can written the greatest article ever but it's no good if search engines can't find it.

Any good writer takes into account the medium. Writing for the internet is no different. In that way, the more things change, the more they stay the same.