Good web writing makes content clear, findable, and engaging. These practices are designed to help you write for real people while also supporting accessibility and search. Think of them as practical tools to make your content more effective, whether you're writing a short update or building a new section of your site.
Know Your Audience and Use Plain Language
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- Think about your audience's familiarity with the topic and break complex ideas into smaller, understandable parts
- Use plain, everyday language — avoid jargon and technical terms
- Read your text out loud to check if it sounds conversational and natural
- Use active voice:
- Do: The committee creates policies
- Don't: Policies are created by the committee
- Choose vivid, specific verbs:
- Do: Sign up for a webinar
- Don't: Discover more
- Aim for an 8th-grade reading level — use tools like Hemingway or Microsoft Word's built-in readability checker
- Define acronyms the first time you use them
- Refer to the UC ANR Editorial Style Guide for more specific writing guidance
Structure and Scannability
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- Use an inverted pyramid structure — start with the most important information
- Use clear headings and subheadings to break up content
- Try to keep sentences under 25 words
- Keep paragraphs short: 2–3 sentences or 5 lines maximum
- Use bulleted or numbered lists for readability
- Highlight key takeaways visually to support scanning
- Avoid pages that only list links without any content
- Align all text to the left (not centered) for readability and consistency
- Avoid all caps in navigation, buttons, or links
- Navigation labels, buttons, and links: use sentence case with no unnecessary punctuation
- Do: Apply now
- Don't: APPLY NOW!
- Headers and page titles: use title case
- Do: Writing for the Web
- Don't: WRITING FOR THE WEB or Writing for the web
- Use external links in the body of your content, not in navigation — see Navigation and Menus for guidance
Images, Video, and Documents
More Guidance
- File names: use lowercase with hyphens instead of spaces or underscores (for example, annual-report-2025.pdf) — this makes links cleaner, easier to read, and less error-prone
- Link text: use sentence case for readability (for example, "Download the annual report (PDF, 2 MB)")
- Remove outdated or unused media when possible
- Always include alt text, captions, and titles to ensure accessibility — see the Accessibility Standards page for full guidance