This is a blog for people who are in the business of developing and providing copy for online use (e.g. editors, writers, content strategists). Mostly, we cover content development for companies and organizations.
What this blog is not is a “how-to”. It has no hints and tips.
The main thing to bear in mind is that words online are everywhere, but most people focus on body content: the news or feature stories, the entertaining or informative bits, the branded copy and product descriptions, etc.
Beyond that the content developer’s task extends to everything from designing the appropriate model (e.g. linear storytelling for passive consumption versus interactive non-linear content) to the text used for task guidance, labelling and classification, metadata and enhancing search results, and so on.
Our premise is that because there’s so much information out there, people have to pick and choose, and they’re developing the skills to do that increasingly rapidly. In 2003 Jakob Nielsen said on average that users left websites after 1 minute and 49 seconds if they didn’t find what they were looking for.
Today? How long does it take on average for a user to scan and pan content?
Just because a company’s website gets traffic, doesn’t mean the users ever go deeper than ten words into the content.
Success is not based on unique user statistics. Success is based on building a reputation for good content. It’s all about engagement.
Once audiences are engaged, then they’ll stay with you. (Read OB’s post: Writing for the web: is less still more?)
First rule to achieving that end? Don’t underestimate how much people value the time they devote to online content: they won’t give you a minute if you haven’t got something worthwhile to offer. It’s got to be quality, useful and planned.
Beyond that, there are no more rules — the world of online content is a work-in-progress.
Page last reviewed and updated: 160907
