There are as many different types of
web writing as there are genres of web
sites. They range from corporate and
small-business sites through family and
community webs to personal pages and
creative experiments.
All these have one common requirement –
coming to terms with a new and evolving
medium.
A web writer has to be good at
understanding communication in general
and, in particular, how web
communication differs from books, radio,
TV, brochures, billboards or singing in
the pub.
The tips, tricks and bad puns I offer
here might not make you a better writer
(who knows?) but, if you heed them, they
will make you better at writing for the
web.
The map is not the territory [or]
reality never goes out of date
Do you need to know a lot about the web?
Yes. A web writer needs to know what the
web is, how it works and where it's
going. Unless you are fluent in web, you
will not be able to convince your client
that you will be able to write for the
medium effectively.
As a web writer your client relies on
your knowledge and advice to make a
range of decisions about a range of
issues including:
• competitors and allies, best and worst
practice (what else is out there)
• appropriate protocols and technologies
(e.g. html, quicktime, flash)
• target audiences and bandwidth
thresholds
• is it worth being there at all? (web
futurology)
• how to give your pages their best
chance with search engines
• how to promote your site on and
offline
And in any case, if you don't know where
you are, you'll get lost. We all have
inherited from our animal ancestors an
innate need to know where we are going
and the exact location of any nearby
sabre-tooth tigers, and it's the same in
cyberspace as it is in the real world.
In here, they're cyber-tooths.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when
first we practice HTML
All you need to be a web writer is a
text editor and an FTP client – true or
false?
True, in a way.
The web is the most accessible
publishing medium of all time. An eight
year old can publish a web page in less
than half an hour. Anyone with an
internet connection probably already has
a web page as a freebie with their
dialup account.
As it is with making videos, or staging
plays, or publishing newsletters –
theoretically anyone can do it.
And they do. Terribly.
So what's so hard?
