Writing Better Content

Organize Your Content

Organize your thoughts with an outline before writing.
Use sub-headings that clearly indicate the content and relationship to the rest of the page.
Lead with the most important idea in your paragraph since visitors quickly scan pages and rarely read all the text. See Inverted Pyramid: Writing for Comprehension for more information.
Use lists for quick, easy reading.
- Numbered lists indicate there is an order to the content (first, second, etc.)
- Bulleted lists do not assign importance or order and are preferred for most content.

The only H1 heading should be the page title. All other headings should follow in logical order.

For example, in this page

Writing Better Content, the page title, is an H1.
Organize Your Content is H2.
A subparagraph of Organize Your Content would be H3.
Write for Everyone, a heading at the same level as Organize Your Content, is an H2.

Use plain, simple language anyone can understand.
Write short sentences and paragraphs. Visitors will rarely read the entire page.
Explain abbreviations and acronyms the first time you use them: American Library Association (ALA). Then you can use just the abbreviation or acronym.
Leave out unnecessary words.
Avoid blocks of bold, all caps, or italicized text. These are difficult to read.
Break out long quotes in block quotes.
Don’t use underlines. For most sites, the underline indicates a link.

Links should be clear and indicate the destination.
Don’t use “Click here” or “Read more” links. Better links might be “Learn how to tune a violin” or “Read more about Thomas Jefferson.”
Differentiate page and email links. Be clear on whether a link will go to a person’s bio page or open an email to them: “Joe Blow” versus “Contact Joe Blow.”
Make sure all links work; some may change unbeknownst to you!

Use the free tools to check your work for accessibility.
Check your spelling using the Conductor spelling tool in the toolbar or Ninja Spellcheck tool.