We live to write. We write to be read.

OK, so my whole initiative to become an Internet marketing magnate is off to a slow start. Daniel Snyder I am not.

The payoffs for most bloggers are hits and linkbacks. Like writers of every media, bloggers write to be read.

Writing For The Web

After writing for blogs, starting with this one in 2004, I've learned a few things about writing for the web, all of it can be reduced to two sentences.

Use short sentences. Use little words.

They Aren't Reading You, Anyway

A writer named Jakob Neilsen reported way back in 1997 that web (blog) visitors don't read a web page. They scan it.

It may surprise you to know that the more literate the reader, the more likely they are to scan the page. Says Neilsen: "On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely."

That's indirect confirmation of something I observed at Hog Heaven and here on Running Redskins. Most Web visitors make a stay-or-go decision within 10 seconds of hitting the page.

Hungry For More?

• See Jakob Neilsen's excellent post Be Succinct (Writing For The Web) on http://www.useit.com/, March 15, 1997.
• See Writer's Tips on bleacherreport.com.

This was an exercise in web writing where every paragraph contained two sentences. If you liked it, link back to it.

Please. I write to be scanned.