Writing for Online Audience

The internet is network of networks which contains information accessible to everyone. Today, an increasing number of people uses the internet as their source of news and information. Approaching these viewers is not just about giving them a quality content.

A person may have leisure times to spend looking for information if they were wandering at a bookstore. On the internet, with the mass amount of services available: email, browsing, streaming video and music, social media, etc., people are becoming impatient and tend to navigate from pages to pages quickly. Processing information with the new expectation on the internet has become completely different from when people are offline.

While this multitasking work people do on the internet, article providers should develop the best, and the most efficient yet effective way to approach their readers. Below are some tips to meet the impatient readers who thrive for speed and attractiveness.

1. The Words

People are more likely to have their attention to the beginning of what they see, and the end of what is presented without having to scroll excessively for more information. Scrolling is not necessarily an inconvenience when people are online. Scrolling is a perception of time they are willing to spend.

2. The Headers

Bold headers or subheadings are excellent visual information to online readers skimming a website's article. Not only do they help the readers quickly understand and what the article will be discussing further down the page, they also help the article further engage its reader’s attention.

3. The Text

In order to maintain a website's credibility and meet its audience’s quality standards, the website should ensure its articles are concise and grammatically sound with a correct use of language it is using to target its readers. Fonts should also be carefully chosen to represent an article correctly. Articles written in Plain Text (non-formatted HTML text) are better accepted by readers. HTML can be used (bold, emphasis, and underline) when it is stylistically correct.

4. The Links

Links on the internet is a common thing. But too many of them inside an article's page will online lead to frustration or confusion to readers. Not only that this will lower the click-through rates, too many links on a page will annoy most people that they will judge the site as unprofessional and not properly made.

5. The Expectations

Quality and relevance. These are what readers are expecting to get from any article they see on web. Online audiences today are far more educated than ever before and they have better access to correct information. An article should aim for highly-relevant, quality, original content.