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The Link vs. the Jump: Writing for the Web vs. Print

We've gotten used to the fact that front-page newsletter or magazine stories send you to a page deep in the interior to finish reading. But don't you hate it when you're already deep in the interior and you have to page even farther back to keep reading?

In journalism, the part of the story that gets buried way back there is called the "jump" - and the fact that readers hate to jump but love to click is a big part of the difference between writing for the web and writing for print.

We hate scrolling through screen after screen of online documents just as much as we hate trying to flip one-handed to page 56 while hanging on to the subway strap or the coffee or the baby or whatever we're multitasking with. There are lots of differences between reading on the web and reading print, but this is the defining difference: Print is linear, and web text has hyperlinks.

One of the many things this means for your website is that you can - you must - get right down to business. When we're on the web, we're all teenagers. We're impatient. We keep clicking - often without really reading - until we get to what brought us to the site in the first place.

That's the beauty of links. They enable you to be brief. Instead of writing this:

In order to fulfill our mission to bring peace to all nations, love to all families, and hope to every individual by sharing our stories and songs, we have launched a new initiative to create online videos of...

(By the way, have you looked at your mission statement lately?)

You can write this:

We're fulfilling our mission with a new initiative to create online videos of...

If site visitors care to read your mission statement, they'll click. If they wanted to know what you've been up to lately - highly likely if they clicked on navigation links to News or Programs - you've just told them, without wasting their time on something they either already know or don't care about.

Links, then, are what enable - and require - the other attributes of web writing. These apply at least to your top-level pages - your home page and the landing pages for each section that visitors reach by clicking on your main navigation. For that matter, they apply to many print applications, such as your general brochure.

• Keep it short. Don't you hate scrolling through endless webpages? So do your audiences.
• Keep it simple. Use short words in short sentences.
• Lead with the good stuff. As in a newspaper article, start with an arresting "hook" and then get straight to the point. Elaborate further on.
• Break it up. 
• Use headings to forecast your main points. These can be "anchor links" at the top of a long page so users can go straight to the parts they're interested in.
• Use bulleted (unordered, in html-speak) or numbered (ordered) lists.
• Use pictures if you know how. Do use graphics to clarify meaning and engage eyeballs. Don't clutter users' browsers with strings of photos that take days to load.

"But," you say, "we're the American Brain Society. Our users are brain surgeons" - or whatever specialized audience you think comprises your entire universe. "They can easily handle technical language."

Of course they can. When they get to the journal article on the neuroschematics of brain density scans, they'll be happy to do so. But brain surgeons are busy people, like the rest of us. On the way to that journal article, they just want you to make it easy for them.

(Don't Google neuroschematics brain density scans. I made it up.)

Anyway, do you honestly think that only brain surgeons visit your website? I hope you're wrong. If a teacher tells some bright high school student that she should look into neurosurgery as a profession, you want that future brain surgeon to find, and be able to read, your home page - and to find it compelling.

I've only just scratched the surface. Good web writing is a craft honed by practice and lots of user feedback. And of course, good writing is only part of what makes a good website. You need a design that enhances your brand. You need sensible, intuitive navigation; a search engine and databases that work the way users expect them to; great content that's constantly renewed so users come back again and again; and a content management system that allows for easy updates.

I'll write more about all these things and how you can get them. The short answer is: Contact me. I know how to make your website work.