Why Good Web Content Breaks All The Rules

The internet and its insatiable appetite for content is changing the written word. Before, most freelancing work required strict adherence to the rules of English, but now, with the rise of web content, the average client wants entertaining and informal content rather than content that strictly adheres to the rules. Fancy words, big paragraphs, and pithy sentences are all being thrown out of the window to satisfy a new audience of readers. This new breed of reader doesn’t want to read the words of an English professor with a stick up his ass, but the friendly ramblings of a drinking buddy. In this article I’ll discuss how you can make your articles more compelling, more engrossing, and more interesting than your previous writings.

Don’t Use Big Paragraphs
With the advent of computer games and television, people’s attention span is constantly shrinking. For freelance writers, this means that when your readers are presented with a large paragraph to read, they just won’t bother to read it at all. In the fast moving world of the internet, they can easily switch from your article to any number of other distractions. We don’t want them to do that. If instead they are presented with a very small first paragraph, they will feel they can read just the first sentence and then make the decision whether to go further. You are presenting the opportunity for them to dip their toe in the water rather than having to jump right in. Short paragraphs slowly pull them in because continuing to read only means reading one or two more sentences. If instead, with a large paragraph, you ask them to invest by reading five sentences, they’ll find it a lot less appealing.

Don’t Use Fancy Words
For all writers, it is very easy to start becoming showy and using big words that the majority of your readers won’t understand. It’s tempting because it makes you feel like a good writer, because you understand words that many people don’t. In reality, you are just using words that your readers won’t understand, and rather than look up the word in the dictionary, they are far more likely to just stop reading. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use fancy words if they are the correct word for the job, but if you’re using fancy words for the sake of using fancy words, then you’re just going to disillusion your readers.

Don’t Use Pithy Sentences
Many an English professor will tell you to omit unneeded words. Your sentences become shorter and more concise, but in turn they also become harder to read. They lose their friendly and conversational tone, and become far harder to digest. Again, you must remember who your audience is and write for them rather than for some numpty language critic. With web content, what constitutes good writing isn’t the same as what your average English professor calls good writing. Web content needs to interest the reader. Many web readers don’t read much, and will find pithy sentences challenging. These people don’t care for writing specifically: they won’t check a dictionary, and they won’t take the time to understand a pithy sentence. Your job as a web-content writer is to not present the reader with an opportunity to stop reading; when you write a sentence that is hard to digest, you are creating such an opportunity.

As the internet grows bigger, the need for web content increases, and more and more freelancers shall appear. With more competition, the better writers will rise to the top, and those who write boring and dull content will get a slave’s wages. If you want to be a quality freelance writer who produces top-notch web content, then make sure to adhere to the three points I’ve made. Remember that the important thing is entertaining and informing your audience, not writing with the skill of Shakespeare. Try to understand who your audience is, and give them what they want. If you can do that, you will be a freelancer who is always in demand.

And yes, I realize I’m breaking my own rules in the very same article that I state those rules, no less.