I was scanning through abstract after abstract of news stories and articles --immediately dismissing two (maybe three) here, selecting one there, ignoring another one a little further down, and so on-- and started thinking about the lack of attention people have when surfing the Web and how different getting, let alone keeping, a visitor's attention has become.

In the middle of this, a client calls to tell me they're having trouble with copy for their Web site and, although they know they really wanted to finish their site asap, they're going to need some time to figure things out. This doesn't surprise me in the least as I've become pretty accustomed to the difficulties clients run into when developing content. I'd even say that it is probably one of the most intimidating tasks a client will come across, even more so than the initial design phase, if it’s done right.

While a client didn't really call me to tell me this in the middle of my thoughts, let's pretend that one did as it is pretty believable this would actually happen. Not to mention that I really wouldn't be surprised with the notification. So, a client tells me they’re having trouble and I respond with some variation of the usual pep talk --don't worry about it, you'll be ok, we offer copywriting services, no? ok, just keep it simple, concise, descriptive, etc.-- but I wondered what other advice there was out there that might be a little more in-depth and useful across the board.

After some searching and yet another episode of sorting through lots of rejects and a few potentials, I finally came to peace with what I felt would provide a decent overview on writing for the Web. Hopefully you will feel the same. If not, well, we do offer copywriting services.

• Effective Web Writing by Crawford Kilian
• What’s Different about Writing for the Web - 8 guidelines by Trenton Moss
• Writing Well for the Web from webreference.com