Writing for web pages - 3 tips

Writing for the web is a craft; a few simple tips will go a long way to getting greater impact

Keep snapshots or summaries at top level pages.

Then have links down to more detail on other pages.

This means people will be able to quickly browse content and decide if they want to read more.

Users are very intolerant of waiting for images to download; they quickly abandon your site for a better option.

Be frugal with your use of images; and when you do use them, keep them lean. Optimise them for page load; keep width to a maximum of 300 pixels.

Publish a summary or overview page as HTML so they don't need to download the document before the can decide if they want to read it. Then give them a link to download the full PDF document.

This will also make it easier for search engines to index the content.

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