1.) We spoke about Plain English writing in class. Please answer the following in detail:
a.) How would you explain to someone what “Plain English writing” is? (3 Marks)
Plain English writing is simply your everyday language edited and web-optimized for an audience of people to easily read, view, and understand when searching for information or context. The main purpose of plain English writing is to help people easily find what they are searching for, understand the information provided to them, and gain new information that they can easily use in the future. Using plain English writing means being conscious of the user’s time and not trying to “dumb down” the information for them, or overcomplicate it either. Using plain English language that is meant for your ideal audience, means people will find trust and clarity in your organized information and can rely on it and return to it in the future.
b.) What makes plain English writing different? (4 Marks)
A plain English writing strategy differs from normal writing because it is clear and concise information made correctly for a specific audience. When writing in plain English you need to understand your audience and write for them first to enhance the user’s experience and then write for Google indexing and SEO purposes. As we discussed in class, people do not read – they scan, and writing in plain English means that your website is prepared for visitors to scan your website’s most important information. Information written in plain English writing can increase website visitors’ memory and retention of the information by 41%, knowing this, writing in plain English writing is crucial when developing web content for your website audience and potential visitors, and writing without it will harm the user’s ability to read, understand, use or retain your important information, therefore harm your SERP ranking.
c.) What is plain language writing for the web and in detail and your own words, why is it important? (4 Marks)
Plain language writing for the web is different from normal plain language writing because when writing for the web you have to know and understand the intended website’s audience first. Finding out what your audience already knows, and what they still need to find out will help you sort out the information you’re providing to them. For the web, you need to help guide your visitors easily and quickly to the information you think they want (email contact forms, purchase pages, etc) – or any other information they may need (warnings, product descriptions, customer reviews, prompts, etc) in a way that is simple and easy – ordered lists, infographics, images or more. It is important to optimize your content using plain language writing because it helps readers navigate and scan the website information easily and find the personal content they are searching for. It also helps Google index your information and deem it relevant and good quality information to be served to users on the SERP. People like to scan and do not read or use anything that does not fit their needs or is too difficult to understand – ultimately resulting in them leaving your site and not returning. For users to retain, remember, and use the information with proper context and instructions plain language writing is important and necessary.