Writing website copy for expert readers

Oxford is full of expert readers. Academics, clinicians, scientists, lawyers and editors all read websites with a critical eye. Many local organisations, such as colleges and departments, research companies, educational publishers, specialist consultancies and charities, write for these readers every day. Yet the same websites must also work for students, funders, journalists, customers and members of the public.

Writing well for both groups is a skill. Here is what we have learned.

Respect the reader's time

Expert readers are busy, and they are skilled at skimming. They look for the point of a page quickly, and they leave if they cannot find it. This is the main reason to put the most important information first. Start each page with a short summary of what it covers and why it matters. Start each section with its main point. Save background and caveats for later.

This is the structure of a good abstract or executive summary, and most expert readers will recognise and appreciate it.

Plain language is not dumbing down

A common worry is that plain English will seem simplistic to specialists. In practice the reverse is usually true. Experts appreciate clarity because they know how hard it is. Short sentences, active verbs and familiar words make a page faster to read for everyone. Precise technical terms still have a place where they are the right words, but they should be used because they are precise, not because they sound impressive.

A useful test: could a specialist from a neighbouring field follow the page? If a biochemist can understand a materials science company's technology page, almost anyone with an interest can.

Use layers

Different readers need different depths. Rather than writing one page that tries to satisfy everyone, write in layers:

1. A summary anyone can understand.
2. A main section for the interested reader, introducing key concepts and the evidence.
3. Detailed material for specialists, such as methods, data, papers or downloadable documents.

Headings make the layers clear, so readers can stop when they have enough.

Be careful with claims

Expert readers are trained to notice unsupported claims. Words such as revolutionary, unique, world-leading and unprecedented tend to reduce trust rather than build it, unless the evidence is right there. Instead, state what you have done and let the facts carry the weight. Link to published work, name the funders, describe the method.

The same applies to figures. Only include numbers you can source, and say where they come from. A vague statistic undermines the rest of the page.

Write useful headings

Headings are signposts. On many academic and technical websites they are single abstract nouns: Overview, Approach, Impact. These tell the reader very little. Headings that describe the content, such as how the sensor detects early corrosion, help readers find what they need and help search engines understand the page.

Mind the jargon

Every field has its own vocabulary, and many organisations also have internal terms that mean nothing outside. Programme names, committee titles and abbreviations creep into websites because staff use them every day. Read your pages as an outsider would. Spell out abbreviations on first use, replace internal names with descriptions, and cut anything that only makes sense in a meeting.

Show the people

Expert readers often want to know who is behind the work. Short, factual biographies with relevant experience and links to publications or profiles build more credibility than a mission statement. Photographs of real people, taken in their working environment, help too.

Edit hard

The best way to improve a page is to cut it. Most first drafts can lose a third of their words without losing any meaning. Remove throat-clearing introductions, repeated points and sentences that state the obvious. Read the page aloud. If you stumble, rewrite.

Design for long reading

Words and layout work together. Expert readers often read long pages in full, sometimes on a laptop at a desk, sometimes on a phone on the train to London. A comfortable line length of around 60 to 75 characters, generous line spacing, a well-made serif or humanist typeface and clear contrast all reduce the effort of reading. Footnotes and references should be easy to follow without losing your place. Tables should be real tables, not images, so they can be read by screen readers and copied by researchers.

These choices are rarely noticed when they are right. When they are wrong, readers tire quickly and leave, however good the writing is.

Keep a short style guide

Organisations with several authors benefit from a one-page style guide covering spelling, capitalisation, how to refer to the organisation and its people, preferred terms and words to avoid. It saves arguments, keeps pages consistent and helps new staff write in the house voice from their first week.

Before and after

Here is a typical opening paragraph from a research company's website, and a rewrite.

Before: "Leveraging cutting-edge advances in multiscale computational modelling, our world-leading interdisciplinary team is pioneering a transformative paradigm for next-generation materials discovery."

After: "We use computer models to predict how new alloys will behave under heat and stress, so manufacturers can test fewer samples in the lab. Our methods come from research carried out in a university materials department."

The second version is plain, specific and checkable. A specialist learns more from it, and so does everyone else. Notice that it names the reader who benefits, manufacturers, and the practical gain, fewer lab samples. Most good openings do both.

The same approach works for a college department describing a course, a charity describing a programme or a consultancy describing a service: say who it is for, what it does and what difference it makes, then support each point further down the page.

A quick editing checklist

Check	Question to ask
First sentence	Does it say what the page is about?
Headings	Could a reader skim them and get the gist?
Claims	Is every superlative backed by evidence on the page?
Abbreviations	Are they spelled out the first time?
Internal names	Would an outsider understand them?
Length	Could you cut a third without losing meaning?
Links	Does each link say where it goes?
Ending	Does the reader know what to do next?

Write for the people who will quote you

Journalists, grant officers and partners often lift a sentence from your website to describe you elsewhere. Give them one. Somewhere near the top of your home or about page, write a single sentence that describes the organisation accurately and could stand alone in a newsletter or press release. Then use the same sentence on LinkedIn and in your boilerplate. Consistency helps people describe you correctly.

Get a second reader

Finally, ask someone outside your team to read the page and tell you what it says. If their summary matches yours, the page works. If it does not, you have learned something valuable before your real audience does.

If you would rather hand the words to someone else, our website copywriting service works this way for publishers, research groups and professional firms. Organisations in Jericho and Summertown and on the science parks often need exactly this balance, and our guide for spin-out websites shows how it applies to a technology page.