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With a few exceptions, people visit the Web for its utility, not its beauty – they are looking for information. People rarely read Web pages word by word, instead they scan the page picking out individual words and sentences.

Writing Tips

• Write for the way people read on the Web
  Design your content to match human behaviour and tailor it for optimum scannability and comprehension.
• Who is your intended audience?
  Identifying your target audience helps you effectively communicate ideas and keeps you focused on the right subject and tone. Your readers want content that addresses their concerns and speaks to them at their level, in a voice they can relate to.
• Skip the jargon
  The terminology your organisation or industry uses is not usually part of your customer's vernacular. Simple terms might not seem artful or original, but they are understood.
• Avoid acronyms
• Bar sarcasm, subtle work play and cliches
  that don't translate well on the Web and distract readers. Your audience is coming to your site for direct content, not for cleverness. Remember that the Web is truly a worldwide medium and idioms don't easily cross borders.
• Don't go for the hard sell
  Give people the facts and let them come to their own conclusions. Good content sells itself.
  
• Keeping it short and sweet
  Rambling text frustrates audiences. In general, the word count for Web content should be about half of that used in conventional writing. When done well, trimmed and scannable content conveys the same information and is more helpful to your readers.
• Writing descriptive labels & navigation
  use meaningful sub-headings not "clever" ones.
• Use vertical lists
  they are more effective than run-in lists at conveying a sequence of events or ideas. Studies comparing the two show that they can improve usability by 47 percent.
• Start with the conclusion
  ask yourself whether somebody reading the first two sentences on your page will take away the information you want to convey.
• One idea per paragraph
  users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph.
• Highlighted keywords
  hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting, typeface variations and colour are others.

Guidelines for links

• Don't use 'click here'
  or other non-descriptive link text (e.g. "more"). Instead explain what users will find at the other end of the link - include some of the key information-carrying terms. See examples on our home page.
• Don't open pages in new windows
  except PDF files.

Good writing makes a huge difference in page views, time spent on a site and sales. The essential rule of site usability holds for written content as much as it does for design: Customers choose clarity over confusion.