7 Unmissable Tips For Writing Great Content For The Web
Posted July 21, 2008 in Writing 33 Comments »
If you think that every Tom, Dick and Harry can publish content on the web then you know what – you are absolutely right. Publishing is easy when we have services like blogger and wordpress that allows you to create a blog and start publishing your thoughts within minutes.
It’s so easy, it’s not even funny. However, not everyone can create appealing content that captivates readers and that sometimes goes viral and gets traffic or attracts business.
Creating great web content is not always easy and needs extra efforts.
And if you are a writer who’s been struggling to strike a chord with your audience, here are some tips which I have collected from my personal experience writing web content in the past few months, some of which have become very popular. I hope these tips will help you to create better web content.
1. Lists Work Like A Charm
No matter what the niche is, people seem to love lists. It really works. I admit, I love writing list posts and have written some popular ones and it’s equally true that I didn’t invent this style. Some great web writers like Leo Babauta are known for their awesome list posts.
The primary reason behind the success of list posts is that most people like to scan, and if it’s interesting enough, read it in full and maybe leave a comment. So, a list post that is carefully crafted with bold headings does a good job as far as grabbing the attention goes.
2. The Title Really Matters
The title plays a very important role. You’re probably reading this post right now because the title appealed to you. This is the first thing people see. More and more people are using feed readers so the title of your article(s) matters a lot! Still, everyday I come across posts with excellent content but poorly crafted titles. It takes time to come up with an interesting headline, but it’s worth it.
3. Be Conversational – The Fun Is In The Comment Section
One of the main differences between writing for print and writing on the web is that the web has so much more to offer when it comes to discussions and conversations. It’s a 2-way street, compared to print where it’s a 1-way thing. Discussions and direct feedback from readers is what matters the most. It’s a lot easier to comment on a blog post and voice your opinion than to send a letter or email to the guy who wrote that article in the newspaper.
Chris Brogan wrote a post on Problogger about the reasons he deliberately make his blog posts imperfect – to get the conversation rolling. So make sure you leave something for the readers to say when you write articles for the web.
4. Be Concise And To The Point
It’s good to churn out sophisticated words and phrases when you’re writing a book. But when you’re writing for the web, it’s better to follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method. Say more in less words. Your readers will appreciate it.
5. Read The Best Stuff
This is a no-brainer. The more you read, the more you know and a better writer you become. If you write content for the web then reading great blogs and articles should be on your everyday to-do list. And when I say read I really mean ‘read’, don’t just scan.
If you are looking for some great blogs to read then I suggest you head over to this post I wrote some time ago.
6. Use The Best Tools
You should be acquainted with the various tools which can help you to write better content. For example Maki from DoshDosh uses Darkroom as a writing tool. I’m a big fan of the Wikilook Firefox extension, it helps me quickly look up meanings of words and phrases.
There are various tools that can help you in your writing and you should experiment with a couple and simply keep the ones you find useful.
7. Just Say It
I’ve talked about this before and I’ll quote it again. Here’s what Seth Godin has to say on writing for the web.
“Don’t let the words get in the way. If you’re writing online, forget everything you were tortured by in high school English class. You’re not trying to win any awards or get an A. You’re just trying to be real, to make a point, to write something worth reading.”
Just let the words flow from your heart. Just say it!
Your Opinion?
I know this blog has some of the best web writers as its readers. So if you are reading this post why not share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions on writing great web content. I’d love to hear your tips and tricks. :)
Cheers,
Abhijeet Mukherjee
******
About the author: Abhijeet Mukherjee is a blogger and freelance writer. He is a regular contributer for many blogs notably including DumbLittleMan.com and MakeUseOf.com. He also maintains his own blog about tech tips, productivity hacks and blogging tips – Jeet Blog
Image in this post: KatieKrueger
About the author: Abhijeet Mukherjee is a blogger and freelance writer. He is a regular contributer for many blogs notably including DumbLittleMan.com and MakeUseOf.com. He also maintains his own blog about tech tips, productivity hacks and blogging tips - Jeet Blog
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33 Comments
Dan
July 21st, 2008 at 6:53 amAs a somewhat new to this web designer (sic) scene, i find your tips to be rather inspiring. Your doing your part for the web community as a whole by raising the bar on those keyboard mashers, with the hope that they might actively reflect upon the monstrosity they name a blog.
Technically i’m not a blog writer so I get a bit of breathing room on criticism :)
Ryan McLean
July 21st, 2008 at 9:24 am- Lists are great becaase they allow people to skim read. No one wants to go fishing through your bulk of words to find the useful information. They want to find it quickly. Lists also work well for those who love to read every word because it is broken into sections.
- Titles are so important, I created a small report but it had a horrible title. Unfortunately I made not many sales
- It is true that comments are the most fun part. I love reading people’s comments. I installed a plugin called comment luv to encourage comments and also inserted a “Top Commentors” widget to my sidebar. I will also be running a competition shortly to encourage commenting. You need to give people a reason to comment.
Often people will only comment to get exposure for their own blog. If that it the case then give them some exposure to get the conversation going.
This is a great post. I write a financial/entrepreneur blog over at http://www.smarterwealth.net you should come and check me out…and leave a comment (haha wink wink).
But on a serious note I really like your blog. Keep up the good work
Finally one of the things for writing great content is to write content that people will be able to read. Not point having great content if no one reads it. Employ SEO in your writing to reach a larger audience
Daniel Richard
July 21st, 2008 at 10:19 amYikes! I saw a space right before an exclamation mark, prior to the “Your Opinion” header. Was that done deliberately? :)
Jon Phillips
July 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am@Daniel: hehe, oops, I just edited the post :)
liam
July 21st, 2008 at 10:50 amNice pointers, I think I need to play with #3 A little more, I’m actually quite opinionated, but tend to be less willing to express these opinions online or on my blog. But I completely agree that someone who is controversial will spark better conversation and usually is more interesting to read, even if you don’t always agree with them.
Abhijeet Mukherjee
July 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am@Dan- I’m glad you found the post to be inspiring
@Ryan- Thanks for the elaborate comment ! And yeah, SEO is important too when it comes to web writing. It does give an edge. But in the end, it’s about the content.
@Jon- Thanks for editing that buddy :)
@liam- It’s not just only about being controversial. It’s about you can get the readers into flow and have them express their opinions. And I’m sure if you start being more candid and let the words flow, you’ll find more people voicing their opinion on your opinion.
LShep
July 21st, 2008 at 11:30 amVery, very good tips. So much advice on this topic exists, and so much of it is bad. I have found each of these points to be true.
abhishek
July 21st, 2008 at 1:10 pmgreat post buddy…all points agreed.
DCWebDesigner
July 21st, 2008 at 1:36 pmYou forgot one: inserting some kind of eye catching visual. I read a lot of blog that don’t do that, but I tend to follow more closely those that do. It’s like a title, it works as an eye catching visual and leads you read further.
mantiz
July 21st, 2008 at 4:09 pmreally good tips.. you know what, a lot of information and advice exist on this topic, but still i found it very useful and quite inspiring. man, i feel like going and writing a blog post right away!
Shannon Snow
July 21st, 2008 at 4:18 pmGreat points, and I love how you followed all of your own suggestions, encouraged comments, made a list, etc :) I’m looking to start my own blog, once I get around to re-designing my site! and I think this list will really help, thanks!
Jedimasta
July 21st, 2008 at 5:28 pmExcellent tips, save for number 7. Granted a writer should get to the point and not try setting up some elaborate back story, but to avoid spell checks and grammar is irresponsible and frankly there’s no excuse for lazy writing. Spell checks have gotten to the point that they are automatic in many browsers AS YOU TYPE, so you don’t even need a pricey word processing program to solve those errors.
As far as grammar… writers, for the love of the literate, proof read your stories! I read countless blogs, semi-pro and even pro printed materials that leave me worried about the literacy rates of our country. It scares me to know that 30-40 somethings that write publicly or professionally don’t know the difference between ‘there’, ‘they’re’ and ‘their’ and many times… they’re being PAID.
Sorry, pet peeve rant.
Zhu
July 21st, 2008 at 10:16 pmI also noticed lists were always a bit hit. Linking to some useful tools, websites or other interesting subject in a post is also a great way to be concise (i.e you don’t quote but send people to the original reference) and add to a post. That is if the links are well-picked of course.
I must say the biggest challenge for me are the posts’ titles.
Steve
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 pmTip 7 is the best and also the one that I seem to have the hardest time following. At times you just need to get the thoughts out there and then work from there and not make it perfect before hitting the publish button. Writers are writers and editors are editors and it’s impossible to be both at the same time.
Greg
July 24th, 2008 at 4:20 amThe Title Really Matters is a great statement. The title can draw readers in. If you watch people scanning a newspaper they are scanning titles. The Article Can be great but if the title is lousey then the article will never be read. A title is alo important fro Google ranking. Google puts a lot weight in keywords in the title. The title is important to draw in a reader and the Google Spider doing the indexing. Remember you are always writing for a human.
Barry Pekin
July 25th, 2008 at 2:04 amThanks for these great tips. Having launched back into writing for the web on a regular basis, I need to remember what grabs attention and what holds it.
Bob
July 25th, 2008 at 11:02 amStumbled across your post today and I’ve decided to bookmark this website for future use.
I agree with DCWEBDESIGNER about posting an interesting image with your article. While surfing the web this morning, checking out my various sources for web design articles I came upon a site that posted pictures of anime girls with each article. Considering this site focused on topics ranging from internet marketing to SEO optimization I had a tough time taking it seriously. Some of the content was useful but in the end I decided I didn’t like the site solely because all the article images were so similar it made it hard to distinguish the post titles. Trivial? Maybe. But that was my instinct.
Michael Wilson
July 27th, 2008 at 3:21 pm“Don’t let the words get in the way. If you’re writing online, forget everything you were tortured by in high school English class. You’re not trying to win any awards or get an A. You’re just trying to be real, to make a point, to write something worth reading.”
But if your content has incorrect spelling or poor grammar – I’m less likely to not read or follow the article.
Martha Lipson
July 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pmGreat post, I’m pretty new to working on the web, and just starting to write articles. You have a lot of very good tips,and I’m going to make sure I start using them.
Cecily
August 4th, 2008 at 2:26 pmHey!
Great content… I hope you don’t mind… but I’d like to post a link to this site from my blog at: http://theimportanceofbeingcecily.blogspot.com/…. thanks…
Editor, The SciTech Journal
August 5th, 2008 at 6:19 amInteresting post. Very helpful and informative. Thanks for sharing the information. Thumbs up to you man :-)
Jody
September 5th, 2008 at 11:06 pmThanks for your thoughts and ideas. I’ll have to remember them when I am writing my blog. It is easier to write and say what ’s on your mind here rather than in words somethimes. don’t ya think?
David Hamill
October 7th, 2008 at 4:31 amI loved tip number 7. Only yesterday I was writing something similar on my own site.
http://www.goodusability.co.uk/2008/10/is-it-web-writing-or-just-good-writing/
стАрик
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:47 amНе пора бы вам начать монетизировать ваш блог?
janice
October 30th, 2009 at 2:05 pmthe last part was really interesting but there are some conflicts with that tip, especially when we are submitting articles, editors are sometimes so strict they reject articles with just simple grammatical errors. So for me it depend on what kind of stuffs you are writing..
by the way I think this site is a compliment of yours, The Freelance Writer’s GPS</a. is a new e-book that tackles how we can start our career in freelance writing industry, I found it very useful so I wanted to spread the word about it..
thanks again and goodluck..
Janice
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