by Char Polanosky
One of the biggest challenges for a traditional writer, journalist or even copy editor in today’s marketplace is understanding the difference between writing for print and writing for the web. The three biggest differences and the reasons behind them are:
1. When writing for print, the final product can be controlled. You work with a designer or editor to control where lines break, leading, kerning, how text wraps around an image and other placement details. However, when it comes to the web, much of this control goes out the window - there are just too many variables. What looks good on your screen, breaks differently on mine. What prints out on one page on your PC, comes out on two pages on my Mac. And when you introduce technologies such as RSS, mobile web, and devices like Kindle, all control is gone.
As a web designer, my advice to you is relax! It is your words that are important, not whether they roll to the next line in the precise place.
2. Mistakes happen. When you make a mistake when writing for print, it can’t easily be retracted once it has been printed. A typo in a brochure can cost thousands of dollars to fix in the form of reprints. The beauty of the web is that typos, errors and misinformation can be fixed fairly inexpensively and on the fly. This is not to say you can be sloppy in your work, but in the event a mistake happens, it can be fixed easily.
3. Your web audience has a very short attention span - and I mean short! Your audience wants key information - quickly and they want it to be easy on the eyes. When writing for the web, try using bulleted lists, subheadings, bold text on key words and phrases, and most of all, be concise.
You also need to keep in mind that many of your clients are going to be looking at the search engine optimization factor of the content. Be sure to discuss the purpose of the piece before crafting the headline. A keyword rich headline and solid first paragraph will go a long way towards producing positive results.
Writing for the web also tends to be a little less formal (unless you are writing for a very specific and very educated audience), but you should still avoid using text speak.
———
Char Polanosky, of www.essentialkeystrokes.com, is the owner of Keystrokes Design & Marketing specializing in web and blog design. (Plus she’s a really nice lady- Deb)
May 15th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Excellent post and spot on!
I have noticed that there are slight similarities in SEO writing and advertising in as far as keyword density and keyword placement.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Good article about the differences. One similarity of the two(for me anyway): seeing my writing and byline in both print and online for the first time was exciting!
May 15th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I’ve worked on a little bit of web design and I admit it’s very frustrating giving up some degree of control over how your words will appear on someone’s screen.
You really can never know what it’ll look like on somebody else’s computer/hand-held device.
But I imagine in many cases that’s not something the average freelancer deals with unless you self-publish, since most people just submit content to someone else, or they post on a page that has already been formatted by a programmer.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Great article.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I have to disagree on one point — you mention for print that the final product can be controlled. True enough, but not necessarily controlled by the writer. Editor, computer layout people, and other “gremlins” sometimes cut last lines off articles, make mistakes in edits, etc.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I think the point is that when you’re writing for the web it’s tempting to try to control exactly how something looks. People often spend hours and hours making sure that line one ends with such and such a word. That the font is exact x points large. That the photo appears in the top left corner, etc.
But that they shouldn’t, because you never know what the page is going to look like on someone else’s computer screen that has different settings.
With a print article, at least SOMEONE has a final say in what it looks like, and it will look the same for everyone that buys that publication.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Thanks for the kind words and continuing this discussion in the comments.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Great post. Spot on. It can be hard sometimes for writers who write both Web content and print content to flip the switch so to speak. Great reminder for those of us who do, and great primer for those who want to become freelance writers and need to know the differences. Although, I will agree with Phil, that even with the printed word, editorial and design challenges can create other issues.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:35 am
writing for the web is more immediate, but you can’t beat the feel of a magazine piece. I love the freedom of writing for the internet but sometimes writing can be undervalued,esp. when there a lot of ” quantity vs.quality” web content jobs which care less about what you write, it is just sort of robotic and cold. Hopefully if you steer clear of this you can feel better about it.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Char, you hit the nail directly on the head. As a copywriter who specializes in writing copy for the Web, i run into these difficulties with almost every website I work on. in fact, I became an expert on search engine optimization for the reason that I kept running into conflict with SEO experts. At least this way, I can resolve the conflict based on what’s more important for the client rather than just always arguing for “pretty” writing.
I actually wrote an ebook on writing for the web (that I finished but haven’t put up on my website yet) and I have an ecourse on web copywriting and SEO combined. You can find out more at WordsmithBob.com. Just click on the link to Do-it-yourself eCourses.