|
Content is King has been the catch cry on the Web since day one, yet content has mostly been treated as a pauper.
Content is the stuff you read and the images you look at, not the navigation that gets you around the site or the graphics that create the site’s look and feel. And the words are the first thing every reader pays attention to, then the images, and then they’ll try to work out how to use the interface.
The State of Things.
But just take a look at the average website, and try reading it. It’s as if the effort to build the site proved so monumental that by the time its makers got to the text—and in the usual scheme of things it is the text that comes last—they just slapped in whatever they could get hold of.
I am not speaking here of websites where stories told as text are the reason for their existence—news sites and weblogs. There is much to be learned from the first, and the second is creating a mini-revolution in web content creation. It is the corporate websites I speak of, the projects essential for web design firms’ wellbeing.
A canny web designer will already have an experienced writer and editor onboard, or at the end of a telephone. A smart client will do the same. The last thing either needs is to appoint someone inexperienced in the craft of web writing to take on the job.
The Thing To Do.
Even if you are an experienced writer, the best thing you can do is buy a copy of this book.
Jonathan and Lisa Price, the authors of Hot Text: Web Writing That Works, have worked for a real Who’s Who of websites and major clients. They are excellent teachers, having taught for a number of respected American universities. And they have good grounding in writing for traditional media, with magazines like Esquire, Harper’s and Reader’s Digest among them, so they have ample knowledge of the essential differences between writing styles and applications.
I own several books on web writing, and have flicked through the pages of several more in various bookshops. Hot Text: Web Writing That Works is the best of them all, and I keep learning from every time I open its pages.
Note: Downloadable PDFs of each chapter as well as learning and teaching resource materials are available at the book’s website.
The Book:
The Chapters:
- Part I: Catch the Net Spirit
- Who Am I Writing For, and Incidentally, Who Am I?
- What Kind of Thing Am I Creating?
- What Will The Web Do to My Text?
- Attention!
- Part II: Write Like A Human Being
- Idea #1: Shorten That Text
- Idea #2: Make Text Scannable
- Idea #3: Cook Up Hot Links </i>
- Idea #4: Build Chunky Paragraphs
- Idea #5: Reduce Cognitive Burden
- Idea #6: Write Menus That Mean Something
- Part III: Fine-Tune Your Style For The Genres
- Writing in a Genre
- Creating Customer Assistance That Actually Helps
- Persuading Niche Markets, Individuals and the Press
- Making News That Fits
- Entertaining People Who Like To Read
- Getting A Job
- Part IV: Become A Pro
- Writerly Sites
- If You Like To Read
|
