I was overjoyed when I stumbled across Wired Words at a web design conference earlier this year. I snapped up a copy at once.
      My job at the time entailed working closely with some of the most highly respected advertising copywriters in the business, and I tried to educate them in the many and varied ways in which writing for the web is different to writing for any other medium.

Ignoring The Obvious
I also attempted to apprise them of how writing for the web is not so different to the kinds of communications they were already well versed in crafting.
      One of the big myths of the web is that nobody reads. Yet watch what your co-workers or family members do when they are accessing the web, and you will be surprised at how much they do read, long articles as well as small ones. News articles and lengthy analysis pieces as well as in-depth reviews.
      With the advent of email, people have never written so much. The art of interpersonal communication has blossomed over the past few years, and despite many designers’ best hopes, we have not become an exclusively visual people. We rarely go to the web just to gaze upon the pretty pictures.
      Images, as well as sounds and motion, are there to interact with and support text. Superb storytelling on the web is a narrative art that combines the best of all media that go to make it up. But without a story in the first place you have nothing.

So How Do We Do It?
Author Steve Morris, a partner in London web writing consultancy Burton Morris, is well experienced in writing for all aspects of the Internet—email, websites and viral marketing.
      Morris coined the term relationship writing to stand for the kind of approach that the web and email is best suited to. After all, people go to the web to seek out information, not have it bombard them in between editorial messages, and they choose to sign up for email newsletters even if they don’t elect to receive spam mail.
      They are looking for a relationship that is more personal than the one they have with TV and print, and should be spoken to in the same spirit. Build on that relationship and treat your readers well. Morris points out the obvious, and given how so many web writers have ignored the obvious, he does not overdo it at all.

Conversations Are Two-Way
Branding is the still common catch cry of advertising, as much on the web as in more traditional media. Morris’ other pointing out of the obvious is that branded web communication is a conversation. Web readers have ample opportunity to speak back to you, simply by hitting the email button and shooting off a quick response.
      Woe betide you if you do not provide an easy-to-find email contact address, and even more woe upon your head if you neglect to reply fast and well. I have been shocked at how so many firms that should know better—highly-priced consultancies amongst them—fail miserably in their interpersonal communications with their customers.
      If you wish to avoid falling into the same kind of traps, buy a number of copies of Wired Words and distribute them to your colleagues. And for God’s sake get a professional writer to craft the text in your website. One who has already bought her own copy of Steve Morris’ excellent little book.

The Book:

• Title: Wired Words: Language is the New Identity
• Authors: Steve Morris
• Publisher: ft.com
• Publication Year: 2000
• Pages: 184
• Illustrations: Monochrome
• ISBN: 0273650904
• Rating: 4

• E-brands need to talk.
• On a television screen near you.
• E-mails as company identity.
• The future of words.
• On stickiness and tone of voice.
• It’s clever, but what does it do for me?
• Setting the standards for wired words.
• Brand personality and wired words.
• Some great examples.
• Putting it into practice.
• Developing a conversation strategy.
• Wired wisdom: virtual lessons in the real world.