How To Write For An Online Audience

Writing for an online audience is much different than writing for a print publication. Not only are the
corresponding mediums different, but their respective audience has varying expectations. If you want your online piece to succeed with its goals,you must learn how to write for an online audience. Below are some guidelines you can follow to improve such a skill.

Avoid using jargons and technical terms, such will only alienate your audience. They went to your website to garner information and to understand things. They want their information served fast and they want things to be easier to understand. As a general rule write as if your readers are 12 years old. This is by no means an insult to the older crowd you wish to target. It just so happens that the average reading comprehension of internet users is that of a 12 year old child.

Keep your sentences and paragraphs short, do not write seemingly walls of text. Reading on the monitor is different from reading print publications. The former is more stressful for the eyes because of the lighting and the radiation emitted by the screen. By keeping your sentences short, you will make it easier for your audience to digest what you are sharing and you will make it easier for your reader to give their eyes a break ,which leads us to our next point.

Make good use of negative space which refers to the blank space in between words and paragraphs. Negative space allows your reader to rest, making it easier for them to go through your piece. When it comes to web design it is a universal rule to fill up only a third of the web page with text, with the other third reserved for the aesthetic components of the web page and the last third being left blank as such should provide the negative space needed by every website.

Make your writings easy to scan as internet users in general are an impatient lot. Often, they will not have the patience to read through your entire piece. As such, you should make it easy for them not to miss your important points by using bold, colored fonts that vary in sizes. Use any of these techniques to highlight the salient points of your piece.

Some suggest using the inverted pyramid style of writing, that is, long introductory paragraphs that grow shorter and shorter as the piece goes on. The reasoning behind this is that, at first, readers have the energy to read, but later, their interests wane, hence the latter part of your piece should be easier to read. I would rather have you use bulleting and numbering in presenting your points because not only will such make your piece more readable, it will also make it easier to scan, which is a point we have discussed earlier.

When writing for an online audience, always remember to keep things simple. You are not aiming for the Pulitzer Prize, you just want a compelling piece that will drive the point you wish to share and simplicity is the best approach to achieve this.

Article Source: http://www.internet-marketing.freearticledirectories.com

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