UK Web Site Design and Search Engine Optimisation
Hot Text
Hot Text is essentially a copywriting style guide for the web and as such provides excellent reference material. The layout of the book may initially be confusing, and it by no means covers everything. It does however provide practical information on copywriting and usability that is missing from many other books.
After the obligatory first chapters focusing on the who and the what of your website, the book then launches into the how. This is where the book truly shines, through the use of clear explanations with examples following each piece of advice.
The advice given in this part of the book ranges from cutting the amount of text on display in half, to creating focused paragraphs and reducing the cognitive burdens of your reader. Then the advice moves on to genre specific topics which includes writing FAQs, marketing copy, news releases articles.
The final part of the book gives advice on how to write a copywriters resume, and describes life as a web editor or writer. The usefulness of this part obviously depends on your own goals, but there are a few good generic points with regards to job hunting that are worth repeating here.
All in all, experienced copywriters may only find a few new ideas provided by this book, but anyone who is looking for useful tips on practical online copywriting will find it a valuable resource.
Hot Text: Web Writing That Works by Jonathan Price and Lisa Price.