Gina Trapani of Lifehacker fame has posted an excellent guide to writing Web content. It’s very different from writing for print or broadcast.
Among her best points:
Use explicit titles and subject lines.
Write a strong lead. Get right to the point immediately
Use frequent paragraph breaks. (I’d put it this way: Keep paragraphs short. One thought per graph. White space is your friend.)
- Use obvious link text. Not “Click here” but “click here for our guide to writing for the Web.”
- Be brief. Less is more.
She concludes with one of my favorite quotes from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style:
Omit needless words… Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences…