“Online writers are those who prepare content for online publication sources such as web sites, blog sites, forums, social net works, social book marking sites, and online directories. They also prepare content for several online activities such as mail marketing and news letters”.
The prime function of any writer is to prepare content about a topic on which they are working up. However, preparing content for a online publication is different from preparing content for offline publication.
• Compare to an average offline reader, an online reader is technically more skilled and usually leads a comparatively busy life and finds less time to read any stuff.
• Online reading strains the eyes of the readers and causes more strain to the reader’s body. Hence, online readers usually do not read but usually scan the content.
• If an offline reader does not find sufficient content in one book, he cannot easily go for another book as each book incurs him some expense. But, an online reader is usually highly impatient and he switches to another website or blogger, whenever he does not find sufficient content about topic he is searching for. (Visiting another website costs him nothing if he has unlimited broadband and a little if he has limited broadband).
All the previously mentioned factors make web writing different from offline writing. Hence, it is compulsory for web writers to follow certain rules while preparing content for a web site and some of such rules are mentioned below:
• Make your content as short as possible.
• Content must be relevant and precise
• Popular saying “One picture is worth 10,000 words” must be always remembered. Where ever it is possible, use images. At first, try to represent given content in the form of images. If it is not possible to represent something in the form of images, try to represent the content in the form of tables. If the second option too is not viable, represent the content as a list. When the third option too is obscure, then present the content in the form of text.
• If it is possible, try to represent the content in the form of audio and video too. If it is possible and affordable, go for animations.
• Paragraphs should not be too long.
• Remove the repetition
• Present the content in interesting manner and look that it will never turn boring
• Heading must indicate the actual content contained in the paragraphs that follow the heading. Heading must be appropriate, attractive and interest creating. If heading is attractive, it attracts more number of readers. If heading is appropriate, it helps readers locate required content easily and with in less time.
•Readers often prefer to take print-outs if they like your content. Hence, do not split the content into different pages. Try to present the entire content in a single page to the maximum possible extent.
Online readers mostly scan rather than read and they just go through headlines, sub-headlines, summaries, captions, hypertext links, and bulleted points. Hence, try to make them content rich in such way that the reader must grasp half of the content by following them.
Online journalism differs from print journalism a lot. For example, online newspapers allow articles to remain available online for years together. The online journalists can simply link to old articles instead of explaining about the background of a particular event.
Written by: S. Chandrashekara Reddy
chandrashekarareddys@gmail.com
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