When writing for the web is worth the effort

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. Writing for the web is not free, and pretending otherwise leads to bad decisions.

Writing for the web is largely an editing job: the first draft is always longer than it needs to be. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

When it is worth it

People scan before they read. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

When it is not

If nothing downstream depends on it and nobody is complaining, it can wait. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions.

How to decide

Cut the throat-clearing and start with the point. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

What this looks like day to day

Pages that answer a real question outlive pages written to fill a slot in a sitemap. Three things worth confirming about writing for the web before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Short paragraphs and clear subheadings do the heavy lifting — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.