How to Write Copy for the Web

Words are easy to make, but very difficult to use well. It's easy to shrink back from the "content entry" phase of web development when faced with a significant number of words to write or edit. Simply entering content can be a chore--nevermind writing it in the first place, or refining and editing it in the context of a non-linear website structure. As a result, the words found on most websites are not the most conscientiously and carefully crafted; in fact, they usually are quite the opposite.

To make matters worse, companies like mine have made entering and editing website content so easy that it can lead to carelessness. I use the term "content" deliberately here because content management systems allow people to manage pictures, documents and data along with words. Remember what desktop publishing did for the design world? Once the capability of "making graphics" was in the hands of non-designers, lots of horrible design and typography resulted. Content management systems do the same thing for the web. Yet, I REGRET NOTHING! Yes, I've made it easy for people to pour hastily considered words into their sites, but I've also made it possible for them to enter excellent, well crafted words. Not only so, but as William Zinsser declares in his classic book On Writing Well, "the essence of writing is rewriting." One of the major culprits of bad website copy is the barrier between the copywriter and his website copy. In static website development, the words need to be provided to the developer for coding. If changes are needed, the words must be re-coded. If the essence of writing well is re-writing, as Zinsser says, this critical capability is removed unless a content management system enables the writer to re-write as needed. In my experience, the need to re-write is even more important on the web because of its non-linear nature. You might not realize how certain words are read in the context of the site until you approach the site from many angles. The need for re-writing to achieve good website copy is essential.

So far I've been focusing on the importance of writing well on the web, but what about the pictures? Isn't a picture worth a thousand words? In short, on the web, no. As a former illustrator (check out my wood engravings at www.holter.com if you're interested), I feel I can be fair in limiting the importance of pictures on the web in comparison to words. Let me qualify this by saying that pictures are certainly not unimportant, but in comparison to copy on the web, pictures are not as important as words.