Writing for your website - mastering plain English

If you can’t express information in a clear and easy-to understand way, your users won’t hang around. Tell them what they want to know, be clear and to the point.

15 June 2023 6 min read

Introduction

Your users are not reading your content. The truth of writing for the web is people scan. They don’t want an essay, they what to find:

the answer to a question
what you can do for them
or, a useful bit of information

Stop writing as an advertiser. Flashy jargon and complicated sentences may win over some people, but it is unlikely this will have an impact on the majority of your audience. If you can’t express information in a clear and easy-to-understand way, your users won’t hang around. Tell them what they want to know, be clear and to the point. How can you do that? The first step to writing in plain English, is understanding how people read websites.

How people read websites and why

Writing on a screen is not as clear as ink in a book. It may sound silly, but this has a big impact on how we read on screens. We have less patience when trying to get to content online. Structuring your content can help to keep your user’s attention.Here are some tips to help you structure your content better:

use a clear heading structure to help users scan the page
place the most important content at the top of a page
use 50% less content than you would in a book
write in clear small blocks
use bullet points where possible

Remember, if someone lands on a page from a search engine, they may not have any context.

Understanding plain English

Plain English is communicating in a way that everyone can understand, having a desired impact, using the appropriate tone and directing it to your audience.

Identifying your target audience is a key step to writing better content. Conduct research to understand who your audience is and what their needs are. For different audiences, it is appropriate to use different tone of voice. But, it’s important to set one tone and stick to it. If a user senses a shift in tone, it can be off putting.

Before you begin to write, plan your content by answering the following questions:

what do the readers need to know?
What do I need from them in return?
Am I informing, persuading or entertaining?

Try putting yourself into your readers shoes. Explain your message clearly to them. Avoid long, complex sentences with little punctuation. A complicated message can be clearly conveyed to an audience using non-technical words and short meaningful sections. Sentences should rarely exceed 20 words. This will help to keep a natural flow. If your content is too complicated to explain in short sentences, consider using diagrams and illustrations to assist your text.

Passive and active

Passive verbs make your writing cold, formal and difficult to understand. Active verbs give your writing more life and direction. How can you identify passive verbs and avoid them? Passive verbs nearly always have 2 parts:

Verb (describes and action of a subject)
Past participle (a verb form used in the past tense)

Passives can be used in some instances, but as a general rule, they are best to avoid.

Basic guidelines for plain English

Avoid:

meaningless sentences and words
jargon to try to impress
the wrong tone, or shifting tones
frequently asked questions, your content should answer these
trying to cater for everyone
using a passive voice

Do:

stick to one clear tone
aim for a maximum sentence length of 15 to 20 words
keep it simple and positive
write for your audience
keep to one key point per sentence
use an active voice

Get writing

Writing in plain English can be difficult, I don’t claim to be a master. However, the more you review and update your written content on the web, the more efficient you will become at writing.When starting out, it is better to do something than nothing at all.