2 Web Writing Changes You Should Make Today

2 Rules to Challenge?

Here are the new additions to the Aha Style Guide and why we think you should consider adding them to your style guides, too:

1. Numerals: It’s among the AP rules drilled into our heads: Spell out numbers below 10, then use numerals for numbers 10 and above. While the rule may still be useful for print (and we challenge that idea, as well), we don’t believe using words instead of numerals follows best WEB-writing practices. (Yahoo’s style guide agrees, by the way.) Numerals provide page anchors and pull in readers. Readers also scan web pages for information, and numbers offer key content for industries like healthcare, financial services and insurance. Why not make it easier for users to scan and understand what they read? At Aha Media, we’re now using numerals all the time. Well, almost all the time — when you hire us and still use AP style for numbers, we promise to respect your wishes and your reasons.
2. A singular “they”: Here’s a construction many of us have seen (or even used) before: “When your child’s spine is shaped abnormally, he or she may experience back pain.” As a stand-in for any potential patient, the child does not have a name or gender, and the writer doesn’t know how to handle the pronoun. Enter: “he or she,” “his or her” or a backslash between the pronouns. The problem?  All of them read awkwardly and lack polish. Some writers have taken other tracks — composite pronouns (s/he, hir, etc.) and, more recently (or so it would seem), the use of “they” as a singular pronoun in place of “he” or “she.”

That’s a step too far for us for 2 reasons:

• We don’t feel there’s wide enough acceptance or awareness of doing it that way, yet.
• We never want to trip up readers and draw attention away from the content.

So what’s a content creator to do? There’s almost always a way to write around the pronoun. Take our earlier example. Why not make it: “An abnormally shaped spine may cause your child to experience back pain.”

As we said, language is constantly evolving. Keeping up to date with changes in style will give you a leg up on your competition, so you can stay in touch with your audience.

Web Writing: 7 Tools You Need Right in Front of You

Our favorite part about conferences and Meetups is hearing how our peers manage the actual nitty gritty details of what we do. We love hearing how different content strategists and web writers work and what tools, reference materials and other guides they use while writing fresh, sparkling web copy.

In the spirit of sharing, here’s a list of what we always refer to when writing a new copy deck:

• The architecture: that is my map, guidepost, my everything. I also love checking off those pages as they are written.
• Content analysis and content auditing map: my favorite is to keep this in a window, as I can easily click on the links I need to get to those pages.
• SEO software: I just need to check and recheck my keywords. Sometimes I do this research before I start writing, but inevitably I go back in because another thought occurred to me. Usually I have multiple windows open on different SEO programs I like.
• Style guides: whichever organization I’m writing for, I like to have their style guide in front of me, so I can double check if I have questions. I also keep AP Stylebook by my side at all times (while I’m working). I’m not a complete and total loser.
• Any printed companion pieces: brochures, ads, fact sheets—they are all helpful in creating and refining content.
• Post-its: I have them in all colors—they help tag things you need on paper and are great for scribbling down ideas.
• The website: even though I’m usually writing new content from scratch, you never know what you might find on the old website that you can use for the new copy.

What do you use when Web writing? Any new and great ideas are helpful.

Struggling to Get Your Healthcare Content to Rank?

You might be forgetting consumer intent. Our latest cheatsheet can help.