Content writing for mobile

If you’re writing web content to be viewed on a mobile device, there are a few rules of thumb to remember when creating the winning content that users want and will engage the most with.

Don’t waste users’ time

Get across what you need to say to your user in four paragraphs or less, or about 70 words. Make your main points upfront so the user knows what your content is about. The content must be focused and relevant to your user. Why have they landed on your page? Is it for advice? Is it to find out about a new product? Whatever the reason, make sure you answer that query and include nothing else.

Your user must not have to waste their time wading through War and Peace looking for what they need. The chances are they’ll jump away if you ramble on too much before revealing the valuable bit they are looking for.

It must be simple and easy to read

Use plain words, simple sentence structures and absolutely no technical terms that are not explained in full. One well-known rule is to write for an intelligent 11 year old. As we have more or less learnt the extent of our vocabulary by the time we are around nine years old, it means we stop ‘reading’ words and simply scan them by virtue of us recognising the shapes of the words.

When we recognise shapes, we read faster by simply skimming the pages. Around 30% of the words are dropped as we skim, but that does not stop us understanding the content. Make the most of this skill your user has, to ‘skim’ content, by making yours easy, and quick, to understand.

Use the active voice

The active voice means that the subject of your sentence acts on a verb. The passive voice, on the other hand, makes the subject of your sentence be the recipient of a verb’s action. It might be easier to understand this by giving an example:

Active voice: “Browsers love easy-to-read content.”

Passive voice: “Easy-to-read content is loved by browsers.”

A word about capital letters ‘&’ punctuation

Capital letters are harder to read than non-capital letters, or ‘lower case’ letters. They interrupt our skimming of content that we like to do to digest content quickly. It’s because it takes us longer as a child to distinguish between upper and lower case letters, with upper case, or capital, letters coming some years later in our letter learning and reading.

And never use the ampersand, which is this symbol: &. This also interrupts our ability to skim content and digest it quickly. Unless it’s in a logo, don’t ever use it in the body of your text.

And, keep punctuation and sentence structure simple (for goodness’ sake); don’t use lots of semi-colons and subordinate clauses in your sentences; like we’ve done here; to make convoluted and layered points, which will only stop the skimming-for-understanding process your user wants to employ to read your content.

Keep it simple. Make it clear and to the point. Your users will thank you for it.

The end.

Originally published at https://www.cultrix.co.uk.