Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

Christine Hadekel, a project leader with Cornell’s Garden-based Learning Institute, attended a workshop titled “Writing Right for the Web.” She thought these items below were some of the most useful points in the workshop:

· People go to a website for two reasons

1. To find content and information that’s important to them
2. To take actions and complete tasks

· People are impatient. A website needs to be clear and concise in order to initially capture and then hold peoples attention (this needs to occur within 2-3 seconds of them visiting your website).

· Web readers are scanners. Sentences and paragraphs need to be short and broken up using subheads and bullet points.

- Paragraphs should have a maximum of 5 sentences or < 50 words.

- Sentences should have a maximum of 5 to10 words.

- Subheads should use active words.

· Blogs are a very popular and effective method of conveying a lot of information on a website. One way to do this is provide a list of topics with intro paragraphs, and then provide the opportunity for people to click to the full story if they want to find out more.

· If you use photos at the top, pair the image with a caption that succinctly captures the message of the page. Top of the page photos can distract the viewer from your primary message.

· Use “care words.” Words that are important to your audience and reflect what they can get out of the site. For example, “care words” on a university site that is trying to attract new students would be words such as: “advance your career” and “gain the skills you need”, not words that reflect the institution such as “diverse student body” or “experienced faculty.” A garden example: “find the tools and activities you need for your gardening success” as opposed “one-stop-shopping for gardening how-to information.”

· Speak to the people visiting your website – use the word YOU.

· Real stories about real people are very popular and effective at getting a message across.

· Use newspaper copy words, not frilly and fancy language.

· Use emotional language when appropriate.

· The right-hand column of a page is now used as the place to list visible calls to action – i.e. opportunities to get involved, connect, interact, contact others, etc…. Use imperative action words that tell people what to do (i.e. Interact!)

· Limit the use of PDFs – especially ones that were initially print publications. Reformat these PDFs into an online friendly or blog format.

· Avoid low contrast between colors of text and background.

· Use a consistent font and format throughout your website. Verdana, Arial, and Calibri are the most popular fonts for websites.

· White space between lines is very important.

· An organization’s mission statement is written primarily for the internal community and therefore should not be featured prominently at the top or beginning of a page.

· Title tags are important ways to be ranked higher by a search engine. Title tags should include the main heading of a page.

· To ensure maximum search engine visibility: use common keywords, ensure no broken links, ensure good title tags on every page, ensure good content and body copy on every page.

· Check all links on your website to make sure there are no dead links. Dead links inhibit a high search rank.

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