For­mer LA Times writer Cathy Cur­tis believes that writ­ing for the web has improved her skills as a copy­writer. She shares some of what she has learnt and some advice about web copy­writ­ing in an emi­nently read­able arti­cle for AIGA, the Amer­i­can Insti­tute for Graphic Art.

[In my jour­nal­ism days] I wasn’t ter­ri­bly con­cerned with the mechan­ics of keep­ing read­ers inter­ested through­out the story.

The nov­elty of the web, on the other hand, made me ques­tion every move. Dur­ing my first few years, I trea­sured the free online advice offered by Jakob Nielsen and other pio­neer­ing web spe­cial­ists. I became fas­ci­nated by the­o­ries about how users absorb infor­ma­tion online. Every­one seemed to agree that the web user was, above all, impatient.