Mashable has a good post about tips for writing effective copy for the Web. Much of the post seems obvious — but the simple rules are often violated.
We urge you to read the full post, but wanted to highlight the following excerpt:
One study found that users only spend about 4.4 seconds on a page for every 100 words of content. When you factor in average reading speeds, that means users generally only read about 18% of the text on a page (perhaps less — since at least some portion of that 4.4 seconds is probably spent doing things other than reading page copy).
Does this mean all of your blog posts need to be super-short? Of course not. But what it means is that you should provide good, concise summary intro paragraphs to your posts — remembering that whether or not your audience gives your site or posts a longer review depends on your ability to capture them in the first few sentences. The headline, of course, is also very important.
This would seem obvious (and it’s a rule that applies to other copywriting) — but sometimes the “freewheeling” nature of blog posts can cause longer, rambling posts in which the most important summary is hidden deep in the copy.