Web Writing

Florida Hospital

Walt Disney Parks & Resorts

I not only wrote copy for numerous websites during my nearly 7-year tenure, I also worked on the revamp of the e-commerce engines for both Disneyland.com and Disneyworld.com to sell vacation packages. By 2012, the Disney websites were collectively earning over $1B annually in vacation package sales.

Give To UCLA

This is one of several pages I wrote for UCLA's Give To development website. My piece here on Dr. Amander Clark inspired University officials to elevate Dr. Clark to the status of UCLA Optimist, where she today dwells in the pantheon with luminaries such as Vincent Cerf, Anna Lee Fisher, and Francis Ford Coppola.

DreamWorks Animation

In addition to providing narrative design for a major marketing campaign, I helped develop the DWA online voice. This opening paragraph I wrote is a perfect example of the copy I completed both for the website and many standard Human Resource communications, including the employee intranet and new hire emails.

PointTrade Services, Inc.

We revamped the entire website to refresh the look and copy. In the process, I was able to dramatically increase SEO and readability on the site, as well as reduce average bounce rates from 100% to 40-50%.

Adventures by Disney

In 2008, the SVP of Adventures by Disney was so pleased with the work I'd done on a supplementary project that she sent a handwritten letter to my manager requesting that I be her dedicated copywriter. For the next four years, I wrote numerous trips for Disney's luxury tour company, including this sample from the France trip. I was not only responsible for creating romantic copy that captured the imaginations of potential adventurers, but I also had to ensure the copy was culturally sensitive and that language references were accurate.

"No One Reads on the web"

In an extensive 1997 study tracking eye movements, The Nielsen Norman Group established that no one reads on the web, and it still holds true today. In fact more recent eye-tracking studies show people scan in an F-pattern. So, how do you write for a medium that no one reads?

Write scannable copy.
Break up paragraphs with headings, subheadings and bullets.
Use infographics to depict data.
Use numbers (4) instead of writing them out (four).
Limit punctuation. (Sorry, Oxford comma!)
Include clear CTAs (Call to Action).

My LinkedIn article "Five Fast Ways to Jazz Up Your Digital Copy" covers some additional tips, but that's just the beginning.

Web writing Best Practices

Effective long-form web writers must:

Have a firm grasp of both content strategy and UX design best practices, even if they don't fill those roles.
Employ best practices for error message and CTA writing.
Incorporate brand voice in a systems environment, such as e-commerce.
Create effective page titles, headers, and meta descriptions.
Understand how SEO and SMO interact with web page structure to strategically implement keywords.