You only need to follow a few easy principles to produce great writing for either the web or print:
Users shouldn’t have to struggle, squint, or hunt for text. It should be easy and obvious.”
-Neville Medhora
The #1 thing is to use simple and time-tested fonts in your writing. My personal favorite is:
Font: Arial
Size: 12pt or 14pt
Color: Black
Arial is one of the default fonts that’s on nearly every computer and phone on Earth, it’s easy to read. You can see a visual demo of which font is easiest to read here.
Just use basic fonts that are simple and proven:
Some websites will put text from edge-to-edge on your screen. This is fine on a mobile phone, but if I’m viewing the page on a 27″ iMac, I’ll literally have to move my head back and forth to read which is really annoying.
The standard easy reading width is 960 pixels wide:
Like this author trying to convey sadness by showing an abstract painting that’s supposed to represent sadness:
A Life Recalled Of Dwelling On Desire Thus Awakened:
The image is just plain weird and difficult to understand. Instead the author should’ve just used a very simple image to convey sadness:
This Lady Is Sad:
Instantly people understand the article has something to do with sadness because the image is so easy to understand.
- They let readers easily understand multiple points.
- They can break up big blocks of text for easier reading.
- They be can used to list out a bunch of info
When companies hire me to help with cold emails and product pages, the first thing I’ll do is go bulletize many of the interesting points in the copy.
Bullet points make the copy:
- Easier to read.
- More structured.
- More visually pleasing.
- Easier to skim through quickly.
For example when I originally made this post, the title just looked kinda wonky, so I modified it to look more normal just for mobile readers:
It’s far more of a pain in the ass to make sure everything is formatted well for desktop AND mobile, but in the end it’s more and more necessary to ensure both are readable.
CTRL + COMMAND + SPACE BAR
….and this Emoji menu appears:
You can use Emoji in normal sentences:
You can use Emoji for more attention:
⚠️ This is important ⚠️
You can use Emoji as bullet points:
You can even use Emoji as descriptive bullet points:
🇮🇳 India: 2.59 trillion
🇯🇵 Japan: 4.87 trillion
🇨🇳 China: 12.24 trillion
🇺🇸 USA: 19.39 trillion
You can use Emoji as arrows:
Elementary School → Middle School → High School → College
Elementary School ➡️ Middle School ➡️ High School ➡️ College
Elementary School 👉 Middle School 👉 High School 👉 College
In this example I am making the
text point downward so you
look in that direction
and are convinced
to click on the
join button
now
↓
I can also make bullet points look more attractive by putting them in order of length, like this:
See how that makes this list just slightly more interesting?
These are the simple guidelines I’ve seen improve countless webpages, I hope they are helpful to you!
The way you explain things and your graphics make it so easy to apply these points to any page. Klassic kopywriting eloquently explained (sorry kouldn’t resist)
Thanks Mia, I kouldn’t agree more!!
Thanks for the post Neville. Really appreciate it.
No problem Soumendra, glad you enjoyed it!
Neville, great stuff! Other than the fact that I found your pyramid /scaling up list infinitely more scannable and eye-catching than the random one, I’m curious…
Do you have any A/B testing on how bad-ass it is compared to the old slap-dash method?
Nope….and I doubt putting things in a pyramid shape will change the outcome of a sale at all. It’s more about making things more fun, enjoyable, and easy to read.
Never really thought I could strategically use Emojis this way and the use of text as art. Implementing them henceforth.
Great tips Nev.
Thanks Khris.
⇨ Glad you
▶️ learned something new
🔎 about
✏️ bullet points!
I like the whole post. It’s very user friendly and certainly enjoyable. It was a like video game. Great work Nev. But pls I don’t get your posts often. They keep me updated and smiling.✌️
Thanks John Paul! I try to keep these fun and informative :)
Thanks, keep up the good work Nev!
Appreciate that Martins :)
Simple but very helpful advice. I will definitely use for my website.
Awesome, glad you enjoyed this…it really does help make better content!
Good advice and reminders. Thank you Neville.
No problemo Johnny :)
Awesome tips for copy writing… One thing that my got attention which was bullet list & emojis… I really liked your ideas. .. Keep posting. .
Yup….simply adding bullets:
Glad ya liked it Sarfraj!
YES! Thank you, #Bookmarked!
Woop woop!!
short, sweet and to the the point tips
Yup, just the way I like my advice Aziz :)
LOL at the hook graphic! Great ideas, thanks!
Bahahahha, you like that 😏
Hi Neville, one thing I think you overlooked in your list, but which you used in this post, is to use large font subheadings to break up the page and stress individual points. Makes for quick scanning, but still gives the reader an idea of the overall argument/topic. Thanks for sharing!
Good point Ellen. I thought that was implied in the “use proper fonts” but re-looking at it realized I never said anything about larger sub-headings. Thank you!!
ONE QUESTION: Which app/software do you use to do these Gif’s?
I made some of the GIF’s with Photoshop and some of them with Camtasia (took a video of me editing then exported it as a GIF).
Awesome, Neville. These kind of tips are so important and simple to implement. Tks for sharing 👋🏻😄
Yup, sometimes the best advice is hella simple!
You should increase the gap between name and date in the comment section for the desktop screens. Not Good Looking
Oh yeah you’re right, might need to add that to the CSS right now, thanks for pointing that out Har!
Thanks for the great TIPS 👍
Just on time. I’m working on a copy site right now.
I will follow your guide 🙂
Awesome Luke, glad you liked this. It’s very simple, but after years of helping others write these are the main mistakes I see them make!
This is great and all but I have to admit the only reason I clicked on this is because of the featured image. So, well done 😂
Haaaa I just noticed that. To the swipe file it goes!
I thought that was a great innuendo too 😂
Bahahaha…..thought you’d like that 😂
You’re right this is simple. I once worked at a company and the style guide for web designers was thicker than War And Peace.
Bahahaha, yeah I’ve looked at a couple of company style guides, and they’re SO complex that no one actually follows them. Kinda defeats the point 🤔