The pursuit of better online copy

Photo from archives.govI recently read the Declaration of the thirteen united States of America and was reminded how brilliant our fore fathers were in writing concise and meaningful copy. Two hundred thirty-four years later, I think we can all learn a thing or two from Thomas Jefferson when we are writing online copy. Be brief, be bright and be gone.

Our writing can still be inspiring and compelling for humans as well as optimized for search engine spiders. Although I think the spiders will not know what to do with a phrase such as “hath shewn” today. I look at it as a challenge to craft efficient online copy that is less lengthy than the Declaration.

We know from usability studies that reading online is more taxing. We scan copy and are very impatient. Every second counts and therefore every word counts. It takes time and extra effort for writers to refine copy and it often goes against the traditional writing style we have all been taught. However, the copy always gets better and more focused through the process.

Two minutes and 400 words

I have looked at numerous traffic reports for client websites and anyone who has done this will tell you that two minutes viewing a web page is an eternity today. One hundred twenty-five to 200 words a minute is a good guide. This means you may get someone to read 250 - 400 words on a web page before they move on. For my own word count for this post I should have had you for about a minute and a half if you are still here, hopefully you are.

There are 1,341 words in the Declaration which is arguably one of the most transformative documents ever written. I am thinking most of our online copy should be less than the seven minute read it took to create a nation.

Curious if your recent online copy is longer than the Declaration? Copy your text and paste it in Word, select all of the text and go to the tools menu, Word Count, for the answer. I think you will be surprised.