Webwriting, Copywriting, and UX Writing: Understanding the Differences

Clarify your doubts about the different types of digital writing — and start practicing right now!

Every writing professional knows that versatility always need to be in our DNA. Throughout our academic and professional journey, we will undoubtedly create content for different media and platforms, and in various formats.

Therefore, trying to define and differentiate concepts such as Webwriting, Copywriting, and UX Writing can seem an exaggeration — after all, isn’t everything part of what we generically classify as “writing for digital media”?

The point is that, despite the coexistence between all these concepts, it is essential to understand exactly what type of content we are working with at each moment — so that it is possible to deliver a highly customized final product connected with our persona or user.

Webwriting: Text and Much More

As explained by the expert Bruno Rodrigues in his book, writing for the web or Webwriting is a field that has expanded from the study of written texts on computers, and later, the analysis of content written and published on the internet.

Over the years, with innovations like blogs, Google, and social media, the roles of Webwriting were diversified, going beyond text and including all the other elements that make up digital information.

Thus, we can understand Webwriting as the set of techniques used in the creation and distribution of content for digital channels, which can be applied to websites and portals, as well as corporate blogs and online stores. This practice includes:

• Creating concise texts with short paragraphs, as well as catchy and impactful titles and subtitles.
• Optimizing reading to capture the reader’s attention, using resources like the bullet points and scannability (such as text highlights).
• Using SEO techniques, such as tag and keyword research, alt text in images, link building, and resources aimed at improving user navigation, and optimizing content for search engines.

Copywriting: Writing + Persuasion

According to Rock Content (one of Brazil’s leading company in content marketing), Copywriting is a technique that involves creating marketing content where the primary goal is to persuade the reader to take some action.

In other words, persuasion is the keyword here: the byproduct of Copywriting, called Copy, is a type of text that uses psychological triggers to convince the persona to subscribe to a newsletter, download an e-book, or even purchase a product.

An example of Copy: an impactful title (“innovation in project delivery”) answering the question “what do we have for you?”; just below, the Copy describes the advantages of the products and services, and finally, a call-to-action — in this case, providing the option to click and learn about the cases or contact the company directly via WhatsApp. (Photo: screenshot)

As defined by Rock Content, it’s not just about “writing” — it’s about writing in the right way for the right person, delivering a personalized and customized final content. It’s an invaluable tool that can be utilized across diverse communication contexts, including blog posts, email nurturing flows, landing pages, and sales pages.

UX Writing: Focus on the User

In summary, User Experience (UX) refers to factors and elements related to the user’s interaction with a product, system, or digital service, including technical and design aspects as well as emotional and affective elements.

In this context, the part related to writing is called UX Writing. As defined by Bruno Rodrigues in his book, the technique involves applying words and expressions in digital products, where these words serve as textual guides.

Unlike Webwriting and Copy, the focus here is not to capture the reader’s attention, persuade, or sell — but to guide the use of the product and the navigation within it. The focus here is completely functional.

Thus, UX Writing appears in apps, choosing the proper word for the button the user should click, and also on websites and portals, such as in form fields (“enter your email here”) or error messages, selecting words, expressions, and links that guide the user to continue their navigation smoothly.

Example (from Medium itself) of UX Writing applied to error messages on websites: in this case, the error is alerted, and suggestions for redirection emerge — either the user looks for something interesting to read on Medium or checks the site’s status to see if it’s a technical issue. The primary goal of the UX Writer is to prevent the user from wondering, “What do I need to do now?” (Photo: screenshot)

UX Writing is also used in text or voice chatbots for customer service, a field that is currently very popular. This application involves extensive work on hypotheses, research, scriptwriting, and sentence selection for the construction of an efficient dialogue.

Practicing “Writing”

After understanding these writing definitions, it’s time to get hands-on. There’s no secret to it: the key is to practice, conducting tests, tests, and more tests. The good news is that the internet has various tools to assist writers in practicing these writing techniques.

You can practice Webwriting by searching for keywords on SEMRush, create an account here on Medium to exercise your Copy, or even try UX Writing for chatbots through Telegram, for example.

The options are diverse, and besides, there is a lot of good content throughout the internet related to all these topics, which helps to clarify any doubts and difficulties that may arise in the middle of this studying process.

Found it interesting and want to research more about the writing techniques discussed in this post? Check out a selection of useful links to continue studying and practicing (:

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