You have the knowledge and skills to write, but sometimes it feels like it takes you far too long to finish your texts? You don't know how to captivate your readers to convince them to stay on your blog or make your content more readable? This article is for you!
It will give you a simple throughline and concentrate the clear steps to follow so you can be fast, effective and avoid getting distracted while writing for the web.
Why care about your web writing?
Human attention keeps decreasing. In three years, it has declined by 11 seconds. Of course, this trend affects your blog visitors. Especially when you know that internet users leave a web page after 10 to 20 seconds of browsing. Barely enough time to read 28% of the content…
To capture attention, the readability of your articles is key. The readability of content refers to how easy it is to understand. Besides being an important SEO factor, it is also decisive for conversions. If your content is easy to absorb, it will have the desired effect. If not, readers may drop off before ever reaching the call-to-action!
So how do you properly write an article for the web? Let's get straight to the point…
1. Get organized
A efficient organization is already, from the start, a time saver.
- Identify your article topic
- Carefully create your outline (forgetting an important element will force you to redo everything and waste time!)
- Choose a writing angle
- Immerse yourself in the environment you’re writing for (writing an article about baseball? Picture yourself with the bat in hand, facing the opposing team...)
- Gather the information (raw)
- Synthesize.
Put yourself in the reader's shoes and choose your writing angle.
2. Focus
The spirit of the writer must be focused solely on writing THIS text. Like in a tunnel, there is no other path possible (turn off all distractions).
Immerse yourself in the environment of your article; commit fully to your text. After the steps in point 1, write your first draft: credible and relevant elements, put creativity to work, write. Don’t linger here on spelling, syntax, or verb tense.
3. Anticipate content scanning
96% Some visitors to your content are looking for specific information. Result: they scan your article to find the answer to their need.
To meet their expectations and capture their attention, distribute your main ideas throughout the content. This will keep them engaged longer.
Highlight your various important pieces of information in subheadings, image captions, bullet lists, bolded sentences… You can also create a callout box to restate a relevant tip or a key statistic.
Make sure the sentence that follows these elements provides more detail and is captivating from the very first words. The idea is to turn a user in “scan” mode into an attentive reader.
4. Create an emotional connection
Whether your writing makes readers angry, frightens them, or makes them smile, the emotional connection is an important key to reader engagement.
- Use emotionally charged language to encourage readers to react to your writing (and make them want to keep reading).
- Incorporate figurative language (metaphor, irony, satire, humor…) to create unique, vivid images that will captivate readers.
- Write short but impactful paragraphs that make readers feel as if you are speaking directly to them.
5. Write in a conversational tone
When you write your blog posts, imagine you’re talking to someone. You’ll notice your writing shifts slightly to become more dynamic, which is excellent for readability!
When you write in a conversational tone, you naturally use simple words and shorter sentences.
6. Ask questions regularly
Asking a question stimulates engagement. Don’t you think?
The place and timing of the questions you choose to ask depend entirely on the goal of your content.
You can place questions at the beginning of each section to awaken the reader’s interest, or at the end to encourage reflection and even action.
7. Use a poetic style
Be happy and playful to share your passion with visitors! You can even awaken the poet within you. Use literary devices such as:
- Use alliteration or poetic imagery to add more depth to your content.
- Parenthetical asides to give the impression that you are addressing the reader directly. This helps keep your audience entertained and engaged.
8. Appeal to the senses
Fiction writers make the stories they write come alive for their readers. By using concrete, sensory details, they paint vivid images with words alone.
You can use the same technique when writing your blog posts. Include verbs like "see", "hear", "imagine" or "feel" in your content. These expressions are perfect for a first-person account or examples. They make them more real and tangible.
9. Avoid clichés and buzzwords
Clichés sap the originality of your content. These phrases are used so often that they lose their real meaning. Some studies even claim that famous rhetorical figures or trendy words block the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for emotions. Crazy, right?
So drop expressions like: "better safe than sorry", "you won't believe this!", "the shoemaker's children go barefoot", "live your dreams and don't dream your life"… All these lines that proliferate on social media, in particular, and often serve to pad content that is thin on substance.
10. Take breaks while writing
Yes, you read that right! Your hourly rate is essential — it's not by spending hours rewriting, rereading and reworking your text that you'll be efficient!
After writing a first draft, give your brain a break completely unrelated to the topic and switch activities. Get up for a coffee, go pick up the mail, do your half-hour of exercise. Then come back. Your mind will be clear, your perspective objective, and everything will seem easier!
11. Proofread and edit
After taking breaks and using your brain differently, you'll reread your text with fresh eyes. It's time for rewriting: corrections, word changes, etc.
Put yourself in the reader's shoes; read aloud to make sure your text flows and is pleasant to read. Do you want to keep reading, or does your text feel boring?
12. Remove adverbs
In France, we like adverbs (myself included!). They are sometimes omnipresent in articles… but not always useful! Often, these terms are used to emphasize an idea or concept. They add precision. However, they can also weigh down the content.
When proofreading, hunt down adverbs. You can surely delete some of them.
13. Keep sentences to 20 words
In web writing, being short and concise is key. Long sentences interrupted by commas or coordinating conjunctions are hard to read. Even more so on a smartphone screen.
14. Follow the three-sentence rule
What is the three-sentence rule? It means limiting the length of your paragraphs to three sentences. This helps improve their readability, especially on mobile.
Also, the reader "sees the end." They feel they are making progress in their reading, which encourages them to continue…
15. Avoid overusing paragraphs
A five-word sentence is not a paragraph, even on smartphones! Although paragraphs improve the readability of your content, they unsettle the reader when used excessively.
Try to adopt a clear rule such as: one subheading = three paragraphs of three lines, for example. This helps give your content a coherent, readable structure.
16. Don’t forget the final proofreading
There you go, proofreading, rewriting and corrections are done. Go back to point 10: take a break or replace the break with “a night’s sleep”; it’s ideal to be able to reread a text the next day or the day after. This also naturally depends on delivery deadlines, the length and the complexity of the text.
And afterwards?! A final read-through is absolutely essential, with fresh eyes.
Make yourself a short checklist: are all the requirements set by the client met? Will the reader feel concerned? Am I giving customers the desire to buy the product highlighted in my article? Your text must persuade, match the requested style and satisfy your client, so they come back, plain and simple.
17. Pay attention to typography and design
The typography It plays an important role in the readability of your content. If creativity is allowed in titles, favour simple fonts for paragraphs. Among the leading typefaces are standard sans-serif ones like Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, Lucida Sans and Verdana. The latter was actually designed specifically for the web.
Font size, line spacing and paragraph width are also important factors for readability. According to experts, the ideal font size for desktop computers is 16 pixels. The golden rule here is that the reader should not have to lean forward to read the text properly on the screen.
18. Use dashes and bullet points
If you need to state several ideas or figures, use bullet lists. They give your article rhythm while improving readability. They’re also easy to read on mobile.
19. Use callout boxes to emphasize an idea
Also, to vary styles, consider callout boxes to convey an idea. They let the reader breathe while emphasizing a tip or piece of advice. The information will be easier for prospects to remember.
20. Add an image every 300 words
They images They help break the monotony of a text. They open up the space and allow clear segmentation of the different parts of the content. This is all the more true for a technical article.
Moreover, articles with images receive 94% additional views.
Conclusion
Writing web content consists of turning valuable information into text that readers can use. The goal is to guide them toward an action, hence the importance of choosing simple, direct, and dynamic writing!
In the end, even though internet users’ attention is clearly declining, it’s still possible to stand out and engage the reader thanks to these best practices.
Publish your text only when you are fully satisfied and proud of your content. It is your business card and the reflection of your work. Knowing when to stop often makes it easier to restart and will surely save time!
You can also hire a freelance web copywriter to write your blog posts optimized for SEO.
