I’m reading a good book called Letting Go of the Words, by Ginny Redish.

This is a really good book for anyone charged with writing on the Web. In fact, it’s a must-read for anyone with a website or blog. If you’re a fan of usability and you’d like to improve your site’s performance with better writing, definitely get this book.

Top 10 Web Writing Tips

Even though Redish makes a big point that on the Web people are skimmers and scanners and most people won’t read every word, she does give excellent advice in Chapter 8 called "Tuning Up Your Sentences." Here are 10 writing tips that I wholeheartedly endorse:

Plagiarists rely upon the anonymity and the vastness of the Internet to hide their activities. Almost always, they know what they’re doing is wrong (at least morally) and though they seem very bold about their activities, they are betting that you won’t learn about their misuse of your work.

What plagiarists don’t realize is that the same tools that make it easy for them to find works to steal also make it easy for you, the copyright holder, to retrace their steps and catch them. Because, even though the Internet is vast, it’s so well indexed that finding plagiarism is a very easy task.

How do you get online visitors to take interest in your products or services? Write about things they care about.

Most would say that’s brain-dead obvious. Yet, it seems 90% of websites miss the mark completely.

The problem: self-absorbed web content. The cause: self-absorbed copywriters and business owners.

To engage prospects and turn them into customers, you need to appeal to the visitor’s self-interest — not yours.

Back in 1997, Jakob Nielsen looked at how people read web content (basically, they scan it) and argued web writing should

• highlight keywords (often using hypertext links)
• use straight, clear headlines and subheads
• deliver one idea per paragraph
• cut word count to half that of conventional writing
• employ bulleted lists.

Many web writers, whether they’ve read Nielsen’s advice or not, use these practices because readers respond to them. The impulse to scan is a good thing because readers’ impatience inspires economy among writers.

At the same time, people are mastering more kinds of writing. Other technologies that grew more popular this decade required a different mode of expression: Instant messaging invited a breezy, fast-thinking tone; blog comments (again, the thoughtful ones) sharpened our debate skills; Twitter enforced even more economy onto our words. In all of these, we were nudged toward something all writers aspire to: a strong, distinct voice.

In twelve years of running digital copywriting agency Sticky Content, there are a few words and phrases I've grown to hate with a passion. If I had my way, I'd ban them from all websites and for some sound commercial reasons, too.

As writers, inspiration is one of the most important of the criteria for success. Without it, well, our writing ends up pretty lame.

For example, a huge percentage of blogs see their demise before the six month milestone. Why?

Because people don’t know what to write about--writing becomes a chore and when that happens, you might as well seal it in. Here are 10 ways to become a more motivated, effective, and inspired online writer.

Learn about various types of proposals and how to write them.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of putting together a website or social media campaign, is the copy.

Many people assume that the same words that work for print campaigns or materials can just be copied and pasted for the web, but that’s just not true. The web is an entirely different medium, and copy needs to be treated with the same respect that design and user interface elements get.

Learn the keys forms of business reports.

Some parts of the web are finished, unchanging creations – as polished and as fixed as books or posters. But many parts change all the time:

• news sites bring up-to-the-minute developments, ranging from breaking news and sports scores to reports on specific industries, markets, and technical fields
• weblogs, journals, and other personal sites provide a window on the interests and opinions of their creators
• corporate weblogs, wikis, knowledge banks, community sites, and workgroup journals provide share news and knowledge among co-workers and supply-chain stakeholders

Some of these sites change every week; many change every day; a few change every few minutes. Daypop’s Dan Chan calls this the Living Web, the part of the web that is always changing.

Every revision requires new writing, new words that become the essence of the site. Living sites are only as good as today’s update. If the words are dull, nobody will read them, and nobody will come back. If the words are wrong, people will be misled, disappointed, infuriated. If the words aren’t there, people will shake their heads and lament your untimely demise.

Writing for the Living Web is a tremendous challenge. Here are ten tips that can help.