The raison d’etre of the web designer is to make sure this content is findable, available,

and accessible.

This chapter covers what website designers, copywriters, marketing strategists, and every-

one else involved in the site needs to know about copy for the Web. This not only includes

the unnecessary obfuscation of content and trouble words to avoid, but best practices in

layout and typography that lead to more digestible words.

To compete, you need to be found

Worldwide business is changing every day. Globalization is reaching full steam. The world’s

economy is flattening, and the old economy giants of brand-name business are faltering

beneath the growing power of the long tail.1 In just over a decade, the rulebook for

1. The long tail is a term first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 article for Wired

(available at www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html), which he later expanded upon

in a book. It describes a feature of statistical distribution where the bulk of the population is

found in the long trailing end of the graph.

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marketing economics has been tossed aside. The Web has leveled the playing field, and

any company can serve any customer with an Internet connection, at any time of day, and

from any part of the world.

No longer must you buy Tide detergent. A simple search for “laundry detergent” brings up

dozens of alternate brands eating away business from Procter & Gamble, many of them

from Internet-only mail order companies. No longer must you buy music at the mall.

2

Hundreds of music shops—many of them serving narrow niches like classic jazz or hip

hop—thrive on the Web by catering to the customer who wants a deeper selection of

uncommon releases.

The always-on, instantly searchable, globally connected Web offers a tremendous platform

for businesses small and large to compete with equal footing. Millions of companies have

seen the Internet’s potential, and the medium is teeming like a jar of sea monkeys with

marketers vying for your business. But this new landscape introduces a new problem. Or

rather, reintroduces an old problem: how to differentiate yourself and win business over

your competition.

Consider a local music store called Armand’s. They compete with the downtown mall shop

and another record store a few blocks away. Their biggest problem came when the com-