People read a screen differently than they read a page, so simply typing out an article and posting it online won’t work. No one will read it. Fortunately, it is really easy to adapt an article to work online.First of all be brief and very focused.  Generally you have half the room online to tell your story than you would have on a printed page.  People read 25% slower from a screen and many don’t read at all, they scan.   Pick the most important information and focus on that.  Cut out all unnecessary exposition.

Anything you can do to make your article easier to read from a screen will increase its effectiveness.  Break it up into small paragraphs and use subheadings and bulleted lists to make the article easy to scan. Remember that columns on a screen are narrower than the width of page so a medium length sentence on paper will look enormous on a screen.  Try to simplify your language as much as possible and edit ruthlessly.

Many people view the web as a less formal environment than a print magazine or a business letter. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that grammar and spelling aren’t important. Write with the precision of a cover letter, just leave your thesaurus at home.

Be aware of the fold.  “Above the fold” is a newspaper term that refers to front page content above where the paper is folded in half.  In an online environment, it refers to content your viewer can see on one screen without having to scroll.  The image shows an example of a fold on a computer screen.  A person only sees the top part of an article.  Make sure your best content and links are in this area.  In articles, it is always best to have your first subheading appear above the fold to draw readers into the rest of the article.

Jakob Nielson, widely respected as the leader in web usability studies has this to say about web writing:

People rarely read web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In a recent study John Morkes and I found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.

As a result, web pages have to employ scannable text, using

·         highlighted keywords

·         meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)

·         bulleted lists

·         one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)

·         the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion.

·         half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

(useit.com Alertbox  October 1, 1997)

If you are new to web writing, try writing your article out first and then adapting it to use online, rather than trying to write for the web straight off.   It may take a little practice, but how your article is written has a huge impact on how often it gets read. 

Example of an article that follows these rules:
http://www.womentodaymagazine.com/selfesteem/gratitude.html

Case Study: Writing for an Evangelistic Audience
http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/case-study.php

Jakob Nielson’s Applying Writing Guidelines to the Web
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/rewriting.html

Difference Between Paper and Online Presentation
www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/wftw1.html

Write Newspaper Style
http://www.gooddocuments.com/techniques/invertedpyramid_m.htm