It's well known that web users are notoriously critical and impatient. If they don't find what they want quickly enough, they're likely just to move onto another site. For this reason, there's a different approach to writing for websites than creating content for other mediums.

Taking these factors into account, there are a few things to keep in mind if you're going to be writing for websites:

• Keep each page short. Write 50% less text than you would've used in a hardcopy publication.
• Write so that people can scan the information quickly and don't need to read long continuous blocks of text.
• Use hypertext to split up long information into multiple pages, making text short without sacrificing depth of content.
• Limit each paragraph to one idea when writing for websites. Readers will skip over any extra ideas if they're not caught by the first few words in the paragraph.
• Use an objective writing style to increase the credibility of your text. The reader's trust is quickly lost if you use exaggerated claims or overly boastful language. Web users are also busy and want to get the straight facts.
• Readers like a somewhat informal writing style on websites in keeping with the web's informal and immediate nature.
• Keep your sentences simple when writing for websites. Convoluted writing and complex words are even harder to understand online.
• Communicate some of your personality and identity by adding bylines, for example. This also increases your credibility.
• Update pages as time goes by to reflect all possible changes. Statistics, numbers, and examples all need to be up to date or your credibility will suffer.