I often see new copywriters, when they complete their training, begin by writing for the Internet. A mistake I see, however, is they fail to keep in mind the key differences between writing for the Internet and writing for print. We will cover some of these differences here, and I promise if you keep these “golden rules” in mind as you write for the Internet, you will achieve much success.
There are three crucial differences between traditional publishing and writing for the Internet:
Audience
Format
Lifespan
You must take each of these differences into consideration when writing for the Internet.
Audience
Any writer must consider their audience. But audience consideration is even more important when writing for the Internet. The basics won’t change (like identifying who your primary target audience will be, for example), but there are some huge differences in other areas.
First of all, your audience is somewhat guaranteed in a traditional publication. Most people, once they have bought a magazine or newspaper are likely to at least give each page a cursory read before setting the item aside. Not so online. When writing for the Internet you must always keep in mind your reader can leave as easily as a click of the mouse. People don’t have a lot of time to waste so you must remain on target and highly focused at all times. As the writer, if you do not appear to be delivering good content the reader will simply go elsewhere… fast. Please do not take this to mean you must cater to the lowest common denominator; you don’t. Your audience is not stupid. But you do need to know your targeted audience and how to deliver for their wants and desires.
Format
Another important point when writing for the Internet is that many online readers are what I call skimmers. They scan your copy quickly before committing themselves to reading the entire thing. It is important to write clearly and concisely. Use punchy headlines and subheadings, as well as solid introductions and conclusions, as these are key points for skimmers.
Trying to mimic traditional magazine articles or offline printed documents is a common mistake that I see in new writers. Actually there are some big differences. Because a reader will read the Internet differently from ‘physical pages’, like say in a book, writing for the Internet requires some different techniques. The entry point is one of the most important. Did you know that a search engine might send readers to a point somewhere in the middle or end of your document? Now, if you wrote concise and accurate content, readers could very well go back to the beginning of your article to read it properly. There is a way to avoid this altogether though, that will keep the ’skimmers’ skimming. Try breaking longer pieces of text into a few stand-alone sections that fit together as a whole document or even separate documents if looked at in the same manner. (This article, broken into individual stand-alone segments, serves as an example.)
Lifespan
The last major difference between writing for the Internet and more ‘traditional’ publications is what I refer to as lifespan. Because the Internet operates with a very rapid nature, people often make the mistake of thinking the lifespan of online content is limited. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ‘magic’ of the Internet is that content may last for years - potentially forever - which is why many offline publications now archive their material online. But you must be careful. While your writing should always be current, you want to be wary of being too topical. This is a good way to date your material. This is not good. Your readers may be reading your words a long time off in the future and you want it to be as “fresh” as the day you wrote it.
Keep these three key points — audience, format, and lifespan — in mind when writing for the Internet and I promise you will achieve greater writing success.
