Writing texts for websites
Conveying the message
Because your visitors will not be reading the text in your webpage word by word, but rather read the first(couple of)sentence(s), it is important that the most important message of your webpage is conveyed in these first sentences. Everything less important can then be placed in the text below. With the first (couple of) sentence(s) you will need to draw visitors to your page and make sure they will want to read the rest of the text of the page as well. this first sentence is called a"lead".
Keep it clean and clear
When you place a large amount of text on your page, the chance is that a lot of visitors will not read it and rather move on to another page. To avoid this, do the following:
- Divide the text into paragraphs and write a short title above each paragraph.
- The titles above each paragraph should be in bold(or underlined) Letters, and 2 sizes larger (e.g. when the text size would be 14, the title size should be 16).
- Place the lead of the page in the first paragraph.
- Use a clear and readable font for your text, such as "Arial", "Times New Roman" and "Verdana". These fonts are the most used ones in texts for websites.
- Try out different letter sizes for your webpages, the text should be readable and not too small or too large.
Using links on your page
Posting links on your webpage draw attention to your visitors, but keep in mind the guidelines below:
- Place links below your text as otherwise people tend to click on the link too soon and therefore are led away from your page.
- Let the link open into a new window. This is because this way people will still be able to find their way back to your webpage.
- Mention to which page the link will lead. For example, instead of "click here", say something like "click this link to subscribe to / register to/ order your ...".
Further tips and advice
Some other things to think about when creating your webpage.
- Before you start, determine your target and target group. After all, a page for children requires a different approach and writing style than a page for adults.
- Ask yourself the question what you want to know from your visitors and what they would like to know from you.
- Each paragraph of texts should not be longer than 6 lines. Write in a short and concise manner.
- You can use images on your page to make the whole page more appealing, but make sure the images fit the content of the page and to not use too many images. One or two images is more than enough.
- Use a spelling checker on your text before placing it online to avoid spelling mistakes.