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What you are describing and what your advice is directed toward is a sort of 'dumbed down' writing. A way of writing for the crowd-signage.

I think it's a result of the Internet played as a numbers game, where clicks measure merit. It has to do with what is available to measure in site stats and eye-scanning studies.

What is missing is what is harder to measure. How well are you engaging and communicating emotionally with your readers?

Here is raw information: 15478. Clear. Concise. Crap.

The plain fact is that good writing, writing that I want to read, is hard. Because it's hard, not many people can do it well. And because not many people do it well, we get these recipe books to tell us- the less talented- how to construct something passable but bland.

Look to what you like to read. Look to that site that you return to again and again because it transports you, grips your mind and invigorates your spirit. Then emulate it. Too often we write right, but we don't say anything worth hearing.

Bill

Information should be immediately useable timely, and provocative.

Here's a tighter set of instructions for writing online press releases (listed, with plenty of whitespace)!

http://tronline.blogspot.com/2005/04/golden-rules-for-writing-press-rele...

Have to say I agree! Keep it clean, concise and to the point. Very important to also have a uniform website.

I am 48 years old and I know darn well that I didn't pay attention in school, but what is tight writing? I have heard of verbs, nouns, proper names and even dangling modifiers but never tight writing.

Kevin

it would be nice to see a printer icon at the end of your email articles making an easy, obvious way of printing them without the ads etc that take up a good portion of the email

18. Spell stuff right. It makes you look smarter.

But this is where things can get confusing, for example there are american webmasters who will attempt to correct another webmaster about spelling mistakes when the other person has been using British English and the spelling has infact been fine for British English.

Of course some webmasters using US English will swear that they are correct, end of story, but thats a bit ignorant to think that way.

So it is not so simple as just saying to use correct spelling, more has to be taken in account regarding this before any writing is actually done.

What a great article - I hope more people read this and do something about their web copy. Although I feel my website is a little "simple", I do feel it is clean and easy to navigate without all the fluff. Before designing and publishing my website I spent a lot of time looking at other websites to decide what I liked, and how easy it is on the eye, and tried to put myself in a visitor's position.

If you have any other advice, it would be much appreciated.

More articles like this, please.

Regards
Nicky Jones
www.faithfulfriendsportraits.co.uk

These copy tips are spot on!

As a web copywriter, I have to follow these simple 'rules', but one other essential thing is hypnotic copy. Choosing powerful, compelling words is the key to convertible copy. Another vital rule is strong calls to action - you need to make your readers WANT to click that 'Click Here Now!' link at the bottom of your article.

Thanks,
Rox

There is an apparent contradiction between ‘STARCH’ research (to gauge the effectiveness of advertising) regarding the use of serif type in print (and thereby attracting higher readership and comprehension), compared to the online use of sans serif type with low-resolution monitors.

Research by Colin Wheildon found that serif body copy was clearly superior to sans serif for reader concentration and comprehension. For an interesting read, find yourself a copy of “Communicating, or just making pretty shapes?” which was published by N.A.B.A. in 1985.

And consider the import of this finding, “Comprehension levels were good for 67% of the test sample for serif but only 12% obtained a good rating for sans serif.”

Intuitively, that would be one reason why those whom advise on writing for the web say you must use concise copy when presenting information in sans-serif type.

To use concise copy is a good thing. However, remember well your audience(s). And realise that some might actually want detailed copy online.

Sans-serif type is so very hard to read for long. The reasons are involved. But put simply, the comprehension levels of copy presented in sans serif type are perhaps only 18% effective compared to serif type at 100%. Now that’s food for thought!

So the use of sans-serif type online is a compromise. It is a low quality solution for low-resolution displays.

But technology is catching-up. Let me explain.

Serif type is actually the better solution. Especially when applied to copy intended to be displayed and viewed on the newer high-resolution displays and printed.

Because, whenever a high-resolution medium presents itself (in print or on the web), serif type consistently wins over sans-serif type.

‘Tullis et al. (1995) found from their experiments that there were distinct differences in the speed and accuracy with which users could read the various fonts; however, they found even stronger differences in people’s subjective preferences for a particular type of font. This was also replicated in this experiment as all the participants favored the use of the serif font for their personal use and the majority would also prefer to see the serif font used on a web site.’

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/52/UK_font.htm

That is why the conventional wisdom of utilising sans serif type for websites is only valid when your targeted audience predominately uses low-resolution monitors or displays.

This scenario is now changing. And as more people acquire higher resolution displays, designers will increasingly have the real option of using serif type for their online audiences. You’d be doing your client a disservice otherwise.

In other words, the high-resolution display of serif type consistently outperforms the high-resolution display of sans serif type (for either print or web) in visual communications.

That fact has been demonstrated by objective research, and reinforced by subjective opinion.

I think your wrong, what's wrong with originality who cares about pictures unless its attractive to the eye that's only natural. If we all use the same type of format like is suggested here everything will become boring or the same ole hat. Stick with originality and make things look the way you feel they should look, and if you can't spell, like me use spell checker. Clean is not better its only formatted to ones ideas. Be original its your signature.

I was not sure I would find this newsletter to be informational, but I was mildly amused by it. I actually laughed out loud a few times. I truly appreciate learning the new word. Will try to use it in Scrabble. Personnally I think any new bit of information on the web is helpful and some of your critics need to chill out and get real. After all we are all just human.

He's either a rank amateur, an idiot or both.

HI

It is my favorite Theme
I like Design
I like very much Colors
The Content might be excelent but i want
it looks like Atractive
Both goes together:Content and Design/colors

I don't agree whit You

Thank you
Slavica Todorovic
http;//rima66.0catch.com/HarvEkerTeleseminar.mht.htm
http;//rima66.0catch.com/ResourceReport.html.mht

Enjoyed the article - felt it had valuable information and would have liked to print it out. I couldn't find a way to put it in a printable format.

Great little article about good web design – except for one basic mistake. You have your text size set to fixed point measure: eg 11 pt. On your screen, set to, say, 1024 x 840 or summat, it's readable, looks lovely and just as you want it. On my screem which is set to 1600 x 1200 for detailed graphics, it's minute – and because of the fixed size, it won't resize in the 'View' 'Text size' command. So please reset your CSS file to 'small' or 'medium', which is relative, rather than an absolute point size, and I'll be able to adjust the text onscreen to suit my ageing vision.

Cheers

Duncan McArdle

I don't think that the information in this article is very useful. It is full of basic generalizations which will hardly enlighten the most grievous of common sense offenders. What about touching on topics such as the overuse of exclamation marks or choosing a tone which supports the company brand?

Webpronews.com contradicts many of the nuggets of advice you shared:

8. Information does not beat style every time. Style keeps people awake.
(Damn near every button, header, and content box is following a different style guide. Awake is one thing, insomnia is quite another.)

10. White space is awesome – even better than big, pretty pictures.
(webpronews.com white space – aka ‘available ad space’)

11. Content should be scannable.
(headlines should not be overpowered by ads, making it hard to scan)

14. Pictures should be specific and informative, not generic, decorative and ad-like.
(75% of webpronews.com is owned by advertisers)

16. People in pictures should look friendly and approachable (and have their whole head).
(like your chipper mug shot?)

When I received my first WebProNews E-newsletter, I thought it was SPAM. For the most part your content is good, but I struggle with the excessive advertisements. I think you [WebProNews] need to get your soul back and pay someone to redesign the site. Reading articles on your web site is like trying to read the newspaper at a frigg’n carnival.