Consider the Audience

• As with print, the needs of the audience dictate the style, vocabulary and format of online efforts. What is its age, educational background, gender and technical expertise? A web-savvy teen demands short sentences, modern slang and plenty of multimedia bells and whistles. A senior Internet novice prefers longer explanations, friendly vocabulary and no distracting sounds and video. Given the widespread distribution of online writing, the same message may need to be rewritten in different styles if it has to reach different audiences.
  
  

Think Multimedia

• Text comprises only one of several weapon of your writing arsenal. You can rely on pictures, art, video, music and sound to reach the Web's young audiences. Since digital cameras, microphones and graphics programs are relatively inexpensive and easy to use, you can easily produce multimedia elements. If you lack multimedia expertise, browse the web for copyright-free resources such as Wikimedia Commons at commons.wikimedia.org.
  
  

Keep It Short

• Dense blocks of text crammed into narrow web columns turn readers off. Short, snappy sentences broken by white space and graphics draw them in. Avoid the passive voice, worn clichés, run-on sentences and adjective-heavy modifiers. Instead, build interest with active verbs and original metaphors. Punch up your writing by breaking time-honored rules. Like this. But do it only occasionally or readers may think you lack basic grammar skills.
  
  

Write for SEO

• Search engine optimization or SEO means writing so that search engines lift your creation up in their rankings. The higher your ranking, the more likely it is that readers will visit your article and read it. SEO techniques are now the focus of academic studies and bring much income to specialists who know the ins and outs of high rankings. But in a nutshell, it involves determining the topic of your creation and then ensuring that the words relate to the topic in as many ways as possible. For example, an essay on ATM cards should include references to bank cards, plastic, cash machine cards and checks.
  
  

Add Links

• A link to a related website builds trust among your readers, especially if that site provides more useful information. A large number of links shows that you've done a lot of effort into assembling your sources. In addition, many sites reciprocate by adding links to your writing, which builds readership. If you're afraid that you may lose readers who jump somewhere else, make sure that the new site opens in a new window or tab. (You can typically set this option when defining a link.) That way, when users leave that site, your words remain on the screen.