Image via WikipediaI just read an article titled "The Seven Qualities of Highly Successful Web Writing". If you go and take a gander at it then you'll notice the date of 12 December, 2000. That was a big "whoa" moment for me. I just automatically assumed that what was "good web writing" back then couldn't possibly still be relevant today. Right?I mean, the web has changed so much in those 11 years that there is no way that web writing back then was doing the same stuff that it's doing today. Here's a list of the seven qualities that people of ClickZ wrote about back then:
- Clarity
- Relevance
- Brevity
- Scanability and Readability
- Consistency
- Freedom from errors
- Good Integration with site design
Web Writing For Money Hasn't Changed That Much In A Decade
Web writers must still clear. The content must still be relevant and brief. No one likes to arrive to a site and start reading something that is confusing and 10k words longs. And relevancy? Shoot...if the content doesn't deliver in that respect then say "goodbye" to that reading eye...forever.
Web content must still be easily scannable. We've talked about that on this blog a lot. Consistency in the site, tone and language is big for me. That's one of the reasons why I'm still on the fence about guest blog posts. I'm just not sure if the message or tone will be what I want.
Free of errors, is big still, right? I mean see a mistake on a web page and you let it pass. See a second and you get annoyed. See at third and you scramble to navigate away. And making sure that the text works well with the site design is paramount. Having a skateboarding, x-game blog with the wrong language and too much text will probably turn people off too!
Web Writing Will Be Needed For A Long Time
Over at Blogging For Dads we try to ensure that we incorporate all those things. And here, too! I like the fact that the profession, art and science of web writing hasn't changed in a decade. That means it will be around for a while. The topics change, sure, but web writers are assured of a job well into the future. More so if you think about the millions of blogs, sites, fan-pages, and bad eBooks that are being produced every year.
Even as some corporations admit that they use computers to produce their web content the types of sites that continue to do well in search engine results pages are those that have good web writing by a real human being.
Good stuff!
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