![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Writing for the Web: Handout
Related Links
Action development process (writing regulations) training (for EPA employees only; on EPA's intranet)
From the OPA Office of Web Communications
This handout accompanies the "Writing for the Web" training. It will help you most if you've taken the class first.
One-page PDF version (PDF, 1 p., 35K, About PDF)
- Why bother to make a special effort to write differently for the Web?
- Step 1: Identify your most critical audiences
- Step 2: Spend time figuring out what they will want to know
- Step 3: Write with your audience in mind
- Seven secrets of creating great links
Why bother to make a special effort to write differently for the Web?
- Get your message across quickly; Web audiences scan and click, not read.
- Reduce time spent explaining, answering phone calls, and processing controlled correspondence.
- Be more believable.
- Improve compliance with environmental regulations.
Step 1: Identify your most critical audiences
- On primary and secondary pages, write to the common level (8th grade). For example, home pages and basic information pages.
Step 2: Spend time figuring out what they will want to know
- How will the information you present help them?
- How will your program make a difference in their lives?
Step 3: Write with your audience in mind
- Explain how you are affecting them.
- Avoid starting a heading or a sentence with “EPA...”
- Use the inverse pyramid: conclusions first, background second
Words
- Keep them short.
- Use as few as possible.
- Use plain language.
- Minimize jargon.
- Explain acronyms the first time they appear on a page, but don't use them at all if they don't appear again on that page.
Sentences
- Keep them short: no more than about 20 words.
Links
- Viewers need to understand before they click on a link:
- Type of file.
- Type of content.
- Precise subject of information they will see.
Use captions and alt text
- Make images
- Understandable.
- Relate to the surrounding text.
- Accessible to people with disabilities (note: this is required by law).
Paragraphs
- Keep them short: 40-70 words. Don’t repeat yourself.
- Bulletize, bulletize, bulletize. Make text easy to scan.
- Consider using if-then tables to present complex information.
Pages
- Create tables of content – use name anchors.
- Write great
headings.
- No more than eight words.
- Include keywords.
- Cut out little words.
- Don’t be cute.
- No blue text, no underlined text.
- Use appropriate heading size and use HTML heading codes
- Spell-check, check grammar
Seven secrets of creating great links
- Make your link text meaningful.
- LInk text should match the destination page.
- should be content-rich.
- Don’t make the link text too short – 7-12 words.
- Consider providing the URL next to or as part of the link text.
- Don’t bury your links.
- Use blue or purple text and underlined text only for links.
- Don’t link to organizations’ home pages.
- Don’t have seven secrets if there are only six.