By Mitch Keeler

Content writing for the Web might not look too tough, but I promise you it is harder than it looks. Anybody and everybody can write – you learn how to do that in grade school. The problem is not everybody can write well. To hopefully put you back on the right track I thought I would share with you a handful of tips that I use when doing any sort of web site content writing.

Are Keywords the Most Important Thing?

Keywords are important to toss into general web site content, but don’t flood your one or two paragraphs to the point I can’t really understand what you are saying. For an example, I’d have to get onto the Lunarpages.com web site team if I saw this:

Lunarpages web hosting is the best web hosting company in the web hosting world. Web hosting is what they web hosting do so make sure you sign up for web hosting today.

Do Not Waste Your Viewer’s Time!

When writing, get to the point. Fluff is good for some things, but not all things. You have to remember that reading on the Web is a entirely different beast than writing a book or even for a magazine. You have to give me the short version and keep my interest. Think of it as having to keep saving that tennis ball in front of your new puppy to get him to go fetch it. If you take to long to throw it, he’ll go find something else to do. If you toss it without letting him know, then he won’t know what to do. Find the right balance in your Online content writing.

Learn to Master Your Best Skills!

Focus on your strong points. Now this would go for bloggers more so than your general web site content writers. Make sure that you are watching your web site stats to see which of your posts are popular and which didn’t do so well. With the popular ones, try to re-create that magic without copying yourself. If you had a really popular wallpaper article you posted, then you might try for a while doing a wallpaper post each Friday. Writing for an audience is much more demanding because you have to do your best to see what they like and what they did not like. Write for them, and not for yourself.

What I Expect to See From You!

Every layout is different, but there is a few things I expect to see on any and every web page.

• Give me a header, a title something at the top to tell me what I am looking at
• Deliver to me in your first few sentences what this page is about before you start talking
• Give me a way to learn more, or navigate around to another section of your web site

I hate to use an already overused phrase but, Rome was not built in a day. Don’t get too down and out on yourself if you don’t feel like you are mastering your content after day one. Watch what other successful sites do and see if you can put your own spin on their ideas.