what type of writing is commonly used for websites

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13 Writing the Genres of the Web

The previous chapter identified some of the best practices for digital writing that will help engage readers’ interest and make it easier for them to pick out the main ideas in a text. Most of those general principles are consistent across different web genres, but the reality is that not all web writing is the same. Writing strategies and accepted standards differ depending on what it is that you are writing—depending on which genre . A genre is a type of writing, a category that can be distinguished because it has certain qualities. Often when you think of a genre, you might think of a type of literature—for instance, fantasy, science fiction, romance—and you can tell which genre it is because of the type of story that it is and the way that the plot unfolds. Or you might think about types of music—for example, country, rap, heavy metal, classic rock. Again, you’d probably be able to identify the genre of a song pretty quickly based on the melody, the instruments involved, and the lyrics. Webster’s Dictionary defines genre as a “category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.” However, even that definition is too narrow to accurately capture the idea of a genre because it doesn’t have to be “artistic” or “literary.” A text message, for instance, is a genre with defining qualities that separate it from other writing styles—the use of emojis, acronyms, GIFs, and short conversational messages. Text messages tend to be less formal, reserved for close family and friends, which helps dictate what is appropriate. In contrast, a résumé is a completely different genre, written for a different audience and purpose and with very different elements of format, tone, and content. If you’d never written a résumé before, you’d have to learn how to format your document appropriately and what type of information should be included. You’d also pay attention to writing style and tone, which is more formal and serious in nature. You’d never (hopefully) write a résumé with emojis, text acronyms, or memes. Your résumé wouldn’t be taken seriously.

In a similar way, there are a variety of web genres with specific features that help distinguish one from another, and those features correspond with particular purposes and audience expectations. In fact, like all rhetorical considerations, your selection of genre and your choice to follow certain genre conventions relate directly to your purpose and audience. The School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University calls genre a “ typified rhetorical action ,” meaning that certain features are repeated across different genres “because audiences expect certain things to happen or they want certain kinds of experiences” (Pflugfelder). In other words, the audience is more receptive to a message when it follows conventional patterns that they are familiar with. While there might certainly be occasions to stray from particular genre conventions in specific rhetorical situations, following the accepted standards helps build your credibility with the audience, enhances readers’ understanding of the message, and increases the chances that the audience will respond favorably.

This chapter takes a closer look at the most common web genres and the conventions and rhetorical considerations of each one. It also provides a deeper explanation of genre convention, which will allow you to identify these conventions in other types of writing that aren’t discussed here. The main idea is to consider the audience’s needs and expectations and how certain conventions will create more positive and compelling reader experiences.

Learning Objectives

• Understand what a genre convention is and how it is used to meet rhetorical objectives.
• Think deeper about the social function of genre conventions and the ways that they aid in the reader’s experience with a text.
• Identify the conventions of writing genres that you are familiar with and be able to apply the concept of genre convention to genres that may be new to you.
• Understand the rhetorical functions of a website and how individual components of a website work toward these larger goals.
• Learn the specific genre conventions of a website and how each one aids in the reader experience and helps move them through the customer journey.
• Learn content strategies for other types of digital writing, including blogs, social media posts, and email campaigns. Be able to identify the conventions of each genre.
• Consider ways to learn the conventions of other, more specialized genres that you encounter.

Defining Genre Convention

Before we look at specific web genres, it might be helpful to take a closer look at genre conventions in general and why they are so important for all kinds of writing. If a genre is a particular category of writing, then a genre convention is a particular feature that is definitive of that genre, helping readers to easily understand what it is and how it should be read. You might remember from chapter 8 in this textbook that rhetoric is inherently social. It facilitates human relationships and activities, which is why so much emphasis is placed on the audience. A genre is also social. New genres emerge alongside new technologies and new ways of interacting with other people. An X post, for instance, is a relatively new genre that has expanded the ways people can communicate and the variety of audiences they can communicate with. It enhances communication, and because it continues to address specific needs, people still use it. In contrast, handwritten letters and postcards, though not completely out of fashion, aren’t nearly as popular as they once were because new genres (and technologies) have taken their place. They aren’t needed because newer and faster ways of communicating are available.

So when we consider various genres and the conventions that define each one, it’s helpful to think more deeply about their social function—the activity or type of communication that a particular genre affords. In discussing the rhetorical interplay between genre and medium, the Purdue OWL explains that “genre is a form of writing with set functions determined by its social need” (“Genre and Medium”). For instance, a grocery list developed out of the need to remember a large number of items that you need to purchase, and so the list—along with its classic convention of short, bulleted items, separated on different lines—emerged as a way to quickly and easily identify the things you want to purchase.

Perhaps the social function of a genre and its corresponding conventions becomes easiest to understand when we consider a genre that doesn’t follow the standard convention. What if you were asked by a friend to go to the store to purchase a few items, and they handed you a grocery list they had created, but instead of following the typical format of each item on a separate line, their “list” had everything running together so that it looked more like a paragraph. And instead of having just the name of each item they need, they wrote everything out in sentence form, explaining more about the item and why they need it. You’d have an entire page full of words, and it would be incredibly difficult to pick out the items on their list. It would take you a long time to read through everything, and because everything is run together, chances are that you’d miss some of the things on their list.

Another classic example of genre is the job résumé. Obviously, the content of a résumé is very personal, tailored to highlight individual qualifications and experiences and also adapted to a specific audience/employer. You might also have noticed if you have used some sort of template to create your own résumé that the layout might change slightly depending on your design preferences and the types of information that you want to highlight. However, there are some basic features that all résumés have in common. You can probably name several off the top of your head. They are typically written in black type with a legible font like Arial or Times New Roman. They have the person’s name and contact information at the top. They have clear headings for professional experience, education, special skills, and references. They are short, typically no longer than a single page. These are fairly simple conventions, but they are important. They facilitate the rhetorical purpose of the résumé by making it easier to quickly highlight key qualifications and skills that will be persuasive to an employer. They also make it easier to write the résumé, since the formatting and basic content are already established. What’s more, these genre conventions make it easier for the audience to read and interpret the résumé. Assuming an employer would be familiar with the genre of a résumé, they can quickly scan the document and easily pick out key information that will help them move forward in the decision-making process.

As you can see, a single genre often includes several conventions that make it distinct, and these conventions include a lot of different elements including formatting, tone, organizational structure, and the content itself. Understanding the underlying reason for various conventions and how they aid in the reader experience will enhance your writing in a few different ways. First of all, it will be more readable because it adheres to writing patterns that readers are familiar with, so they can more easily pick out your main ideas. Any time you come across a new genre, you will likely struggle at first to understand what the conventions are and how to adapt your writing so that it seems authentic but still adheres to the audience’s expectations. However, cultivating an awareness of genre will help you make this transition, as it will play a key role in the writing and revision processes. Second, genres provide greater opportunity for creativity and deep critical thinking. That might seem counterintuitive given that genres create parameters that seem to limit your creative options, but the reality is that a genre is a productive lens that guides your writing and thinking process. In terms of the rhetorical situation, genres are created to meet particular purposes that respond to certain exigencies; therefore, focusing on the genre conventions will enhance your ability to write something meaningful. Finally, following genre conventions increases your credibility because it signals to readers that you are experienced in this genre and have thought about their needs and expectations. Even conventions that seem relatively minor will demonstrate your expertise and attention to detail, which will go a long way to spark goodwill and similar generosity in your audience.

Activity 13.1

Make a list of all of the different genres that you write in each day. This might include anything from the more mundane texts, such as lists or text messages, to documents that are longer and more complex. Which genres are you most familiar with? Which ones are you still learning? See if you can identify the social function of each genre.

Now pick one or two of the genres from your list and see how many conventions you can list for each one. Be sure to include formatting rules as well as conventions related to formality, tone, organizational structure, and content. How do these conventions aid in the readability of texts in that genre?

We’ll begin with a genre that most people are already familiar with—the email. From a rhetorical standpoint, your approach to an email depends largely on the context of your message—who your audience is and the subject of your email—but generally speaking, emails are considered more formal than text messages and should avoid being overly informal or using “texty” language and emojis. From a professional standpoint, there are a couple of different types of emails that you might have to write. The first and most obvious is a work-related email to a colleague, client, or vendor, in which case you obviously want to be friendly but also to the point. Just like other types of digital writing, emails should be fairly brief if possible with content broken down into individual paragraphs and bulleted information for enhanced readability. You might also need to hyperlink to websites and other documents that are pertinent to the conversation. You’d probably also have some sort of call to action (CTA) at the end, even if just to invite that person to let you know if they have more questions or to request that they get back to you about a specific question or issue.

The second type of professional email is a marketing tool, a message that is part of a targeted campaign, and it’s a way of reaching out individually to leads that your company has acquired. Remember that one of the functions of a website is to generate leads. Companies then use that list of current and prospective customers to send targeted emails, often giving them more information about a specific promotion, letting them know that the latest blog post is available, inviting them to an event, and so on. Obviously, these types of emails can get annoying, and people will quickly “unsubscribe” or assign them to their spam folder if they don’t find the information to be useful. That’s why you should be very intentional about the type of content (and how much content) that you send and focus on the leads that have expressed genuine interest in your organization. For emails that are part of a concerted marketing campaign, several genre conventions can be applied:

• Have a clear subject line. Just like blog articles and social media posts will engage attention with a specific and catchy title, so will an email title. Since most people get hundreds of emails each day, you want to create a title that will grab their attention and says something specific about what the message entails. While different email platforms vary, you’d generally want your title to be shorter than 60 characters so it doesn’t get cut off.
• Write preview text. Some email platforms also show preview text , sort of like a subtitle that provides additional information or a slightly different hook, typically 45 characters or less (Slater).
• Keep it short. Once again, less is more. A couple of short paragraphs are all you really have to engage the reader so that they understand the value of what you are offering and feel compelled to take action.
• Have a clear CTA. Since these emails are often used as an internal marketing tool to draw people to your site, the call to action does just that. It prompts readers to click a link so they can read the new blog article, get more information about a product or event, and so on.
• Provide contact information. A professional signature should include the sender’s name, company logo, phone number, and email address so that the reader can easily follow up with questions.

Almost all businesses maintain a website as the “front door” to their organization, realizing that before most customers set foot in the store (if there is a physical space), they will go to the website to get information about store hours, products, mission, and so on. It’s the first impression most people will have about the organization, so providing useful content, organizing information effectively, and using rhetorical strategies to engage readers will create a positive user experience and strengthen the organization’s brand. Even individuals sometimes maintain websites for personal or professional reasons, knowing that they will reach a much wider audience and have access to design tools that will create a positive connection.

As we discuss the various other web genres—blogs, social media posts, emails, and so on—it’s important to keep in mind that these are often used as collateral marketing tools that serve the primary function of guiding people back to the website, where they can learn more information about a particular event or product, make a purchase, schedule an appointment, and so on. Leland Dieno, an entrepreneur and expert in digital marketing, says, “Your website is the center of your digital ecosystem,” meaning that everything else revolves around the content you provide there. It’s the place where users will go to find information, and if it’s organized well, it will create a clear path to help them learn about your organization and respond positively to your call to action, whatever that might be. Kunjan Mehta explains it like this:

Web development can help you create a clear path for where you want your customers to go, how they will get there, and what the goals are for your audience. Everything else you do stems from these aspects and connects back to your website. No matter what else is involved with your digital ecosystem, the ultimate goal is to direct all online activity back to your website.

Website development is a very big topic, and there are many nuances in functionality (which continue to evolve quickly with new integrations and plugin updates) and differences from one web platform to the next. Many businesses pay web developing companies thousands of dollars to create and update their website, but advancements in digital tools and user-friendly platforms have also made it possible for people to create and maintain their own website—if they are willing to take some time to learn how. While it’s beyond the scope of this textbook to discuss the “how-to” aspect of the different web hosting platforms, there are numerous resources available that do. For instance, WebsiteBuilderInsider has created a resource guide for web development that discusses many different aspects of the planning stages (Brandon). There are also a number of articles online, like this one by Niel Patel , that give an overview of the different website platforms and the pros and cons of each one. Once you decide on a platform, there are also numerous YouTube videos, created by the hosting services as well as experienced users, to help you get started and to troubleshoot various issues.

The main goal of this section of the textbook is to help you think more clearly about the purpose of the website and how to develop content to help you meet that purpose. We’ll also discuss best practices in website design.

Functionality

A website has a number of different purposes, and while the specific functions of a website will obviously vary from one circumstance to another, at its core, a website is typically designed with five key purposes in mind:

• Creating unique meta descriptions for each web page. A meta description is the information that appears on the search engine results page (SERP) (Google Search Central), and it includes the URL, a title of the page that users can click on to get to the web page, and a “ snippet ” of text that gives a description of the content on that page (Riddall). By providing relevant and interesting information and a call to action, a website is much more likely to attract visitors. The image below is an example of a meta description of what a snippet might look like if you searched for the best beach destinations in the United States. It even includes a picture to entice visitors.

• Creating meta tags for other content on the page—titles, alt tags for images and graphics, headers (Hughes).
• Creating a Google Business Profile that provides contact information, business hours, customer reviews, and other helpful information for potential customers (Caplan). It not only builds awareness about a business but also builds credibility and provides a path directly to the website.
• Provide useful content. This goes hand in hand with the purpose listed above—to attract visitors. Many of the strategies used to attract visitors have to do with meta descriptions and strategies that make a website visible to potential customers. However, there are many SEO practices designed to mislead users so that it looks like a web page has relevant and interesting content. For instance, keyword stuffing is an attempt to rank higher on the SERP by continually repeating keywords and phrases over and over (BigCommerce Essentials). Even if this were to position a web page higher on the SERP (which it doesn’t), it creates a negative user experience because a page that uses this strategy is often difficult to read and doesn’t provide the types of information that a visitor is looking for. So they will very quickly bounce off the page. Successful content writers carefully consider the needs and expectations of their target audience. They think through the types of information that users will be looking for, the questions that they might have as they navigate the site, and they are intentional about making that information easy to find and easy to understand. In fact, a large part of an organization’s content strategy revolves around pinpointing the type of content that users are looking for and making it easy to find (Forsey). This relates directly to the meta descriptions you provide for each page, but it also includes choices regarding website navigation, titles and subheadings, the way information is organized on a page, and the design choices you make. It also relates to the language you use and your effort to be upfront and specific. This will not only engage visitors but create a positive experience and help build trust with potential customers.
• Strengthen your brand. An obvious function of a website is to communicate the unique identity and mission of an organization to the audience. It’s an opportunity to fully develop your story—the history of the organization, profiles of organizational leaders and staff members, the mission of the organization, customer testimonials, and so on. Remember that a brand is your image—the way that you want others to perceive you. It relates directly to the way that people perceive your values, personality, work ethic, community culture. When visitors have positive experiences and impressions on a website, it not only strengthens their perception of the organization, but it increases the chances that they will leave positive reviews, share information about the organization, and use their personal social media accounts to like, share, and repost content that will shape others’ perceptions of the organization as well. Since we talked at length about branding in chapter 9, we won’t rehash it here. Suffice it to say that an organization’s efforts at branding can sometimes be explicit, related to things like its logo and tagline, mission statement, history, credentials and certifications, staff photos and profiles, charity involvement, and customer reviews. It can also relate to more subtle cues—how easy it is to find information on the website, how well information is organized, how company policies are communicated, the tone of the language and overall design, and of course, how satisfied customers are with the service they receive when they do engage with an organization.
• Prompt action. Remember that rhetorically, websites are developed with a purpose in mind—a particular way that the speaker wants the audience to respond. To that end, everything on the website should be working toward that end goal to compel readers to respond. However, an effective website will also give a call to action (CTA) that explicitly tells readers what they should do next and then points them in the right direction (Optimizely). Of course, different messages might have different CTAs depending on their purpose and where visitors might be in their buyer journey. Some CTAs might simply prompt readers to “read more” about a particular service or concept or to “schedule an appointment” or “get a free quote” to help move them forward in the buyer journey. Others might want readers to sign up for a newsletter, share something on social media, volunteer for an event, sign up for a free trial, or “buy now.” Web pages that direct readers about what they should do next and provide a clear path to take that action are much more likely to meet their communication goals.
• Generate leads. It’s probably not a first priority to collect contact information of potential customers, but one important function of a website is to generate leads so it’s easy to communicate with current and potential customers about services, events, and product updates (Boyarsky). For instance, many websites have contact forms where users can put in their information (an email probably and maybe an email address or mailing address) in order to get more information or to receive a response about a question or problem. Other websites have pop-up windows inviting users to subscribe to a newsletter or sign up for a free trial. Using these and many other strategies, user information is collected and stored in a spreadsheet or a lead management platform that makes it easy to deliver content directly to users via email, text message, or mail. This can be a very effective way to drive more traffic to your website and create consistent engagement with people in your target market. On the other hand, many websites use deceptive strategies to collect user information (Baydin). Maybe a visitor wants to get more information about a product or service, but they are required to put in their email address in order to access that information. Deceptive lead generation strategies trick users into providing their contact information or they collect this information without user permission, through some sort of third-party organization that sells leads. That’s when people receive what they consider to be spam emails and text messages and feel bombarded, even harassed, by marketing schemes they don’t care about. Those are the types of experiences that create negative impressions and undermine the brand that you are trying to create.

Genre Conventions for a Website

Genre conventions are always connected to purpose, allowing readers to quickly and easily engage with the ideas of a text. Website conventions are no exception. However, a visitor arrives on a web page—via a Google search or a link on a social media post or in an email—chances are they are looking for specific information. They are interested in learning more about the product, service, mission, event, or concept highlighted on that page, but as we’ve already discussed, most visitors don’t spend much time at all reading a web page. They scan headlines and subheadings. They skim through bulleted lists. They might quickly scan the navigation bar at the top. And if they don’t find what they are looking for, they will bounce away. The best practices for a website listed below are reader-centered, geared toward engaging visitors and making it easy for them to quickly find the information they need.

• Streamline the content. Be selective as you prioritize the information on a page and the number of pages on a website. Though larger organizations might need larger websites with more menu items and web pages, big websites are often more difficult for users to navigate because there is more content to sift through, and it’s often harder to find the information they are looking for. Having a streamlined site map with a few key menu items and shorter web pages that are easy to read will go a long way to keep readers engaged. In other words, sometimes less is more.
• Put the most important information first on the page. This is called an inverted pyramid structure (Purdue OWL, “The Inverted Pyramid”). Putting the most important information first will help it stand out to readers, who can then read on to get more detailed information about that particular topic as they move down the page. However, if they have to scroll or if the key information is buried within large chunks of text, readers are much less likely to stay on the page. And if they don’t stay to read the entire page (as most readers don’t), then they will have at least gotten the main idea. Clearly labeled titles and subheadings (in larger, bold font than the rest of the text) will also help.
• Be intentional about organization. According to The Web Project Guide , successful website organization entails three things: grouping like content together, creating a logical navigation system, and providing clear labels ( Vilhauer et al. ). Often a useful way to organize content on your website is through categories, where pages are grouped together because they have similar content. For instance, many websites have an “About” section on the main navigation menu at the top of the home page. This could include a drop-down menu with several content pages: mission statement, employee profiles, company history, and so on. Figuring out how similar items should be grouped together is the first step. Then you need to create a site map, demonstrating the organizational structure of your site and using clear menu labels. This Creately.com website provides free tools that allow users to create their own site map, or you can always draw it out on a piece of paper.
• Focus on readability. This includes all of the strategies that guide a reader through the content of a web page so it’s easy for them to pick out the main idea: Headings, subheadings, bulleted lists, short paragraphs, simple sentence structures, and word choice that is clear and specific. Readability also relates to the formatting choices that you make. For instance, websites tend to use a font that is sans serif, which makes it easier to read. Similarly, higher-level text like titles and subtitles might be in bold and in a larger font than the rest of the text. Items should be spaced appropriately so that things aren’t crammed together, but readers can still tell which items go together.
• Be specific. People visiting the site are looking for certain types of information about products, services, upcoming events, pricing, and so on. It’s your job to carefully consider the information that readers are looking for and to provide that information so that it’s clear. Readers will quickly become frustrated with vague, flowery text that doesn’t really tell them anything. Product descriptions, for instance, would go beyond a list of adjectives to also include product dimensions, items that are included, capabilities, other outside items needed for use, and any other information that would help them determine whether they want to buy the product. Certainly, there’s a balance between streamlining content and providing enough detail. The point is to use the space that you have to give content that is meaningful for readers, and to provide opportunities to get more information.
• Use hyperlinks. Hyperlinks help visitors make connections. This can be especially helpful as they are navigating your site. Internal links to relevant pages guide readers to more detailed information on your website about a specific topic. Similarly hyperlinks at the bottom of a web page that coincide with the call to action to schedule an appointment or get more information increase the likelihood of a user taking that action. External links to credible, relevant web pages are also useful in building your own credibility and providing important information to readers without taking up more room on the page. Obviously, you’d want to be strategic about hyperlinks, limiting the amount on a given page so readers aren’t overwhelmed. You’d also want to be selective about the words that you choose for a hyperlink so that it’s fairly clear what type of information readers will find if they follow the link. For example, let’s say that a fitness blog has the following sentence: “There are many different methods for increasing your stamina during a workout.” If the words “different methods” or “increasing your stamina” were hyperlinked (as evidenced by the telltale blue, underlined text), then readers would expect that it links to more information about what those methods are. On the other hand, if they are taken to a product page with running shoes for sale, they’d likely be confused and probably a little frustrated.
• Use visuals. Consider the types of pictures and other images that will help engage readers. Visuals have several different purposes on a web page. On one hand, they can be used to help clarify information. A map or a pie graph, for instance, is a visual that can be used to support written content on a page and help readers more easily process that information. The same might be said for a table, chart, or photo. A company that sells cars, for instance, would obviously include pictures of the car that they are trying to sell so that readers have a clearer understanding of what it looks like. Visuals can also be used for branding—to help visitors get a clear sense of the personality or mission of a person or organization. For instance, a children’s hospital would likely use photos of doctors working with children, particularly pictures where the children are smiling. These types of photos would go a long way to demonstrate the level of care and compassion the hospital provides. It would also be a very persuasive element that would make visitors more likely to bring their children to that hospital or to donate money. Visuals serve several different rhetorical functions, which is why they are so important to include on your website.
• Think aesthetics. A website that is visually appealing is much more likely to engage readers. As discussed in chapter 10, various design elements can be used to help convey meaning. Color choice, font size, font design, graphics, and images can all be used to direct readers’ attention and help them more easily read and understand the information. But design choices also affect the overall user experience and develop the ethos of the organization. According to this Crowdbotics article about the “Aesthetic of Modern Web Design,” the aesthetics of a website includes the overall layout with different components, menus, buttons, images, icons, colors, fonts, and so on. It also incorporates interactive features, such as sounds, animations, and symbols. Together, these features create a user-friendly appearance and leave an impact on the intended audience.
• Provide clear calls to action. Almost every page on a website has a call to action that explicitly invites users to take the next step to find out more information, to donate money, to buy a product, to read a full article, and so on. These might be as buttons or clear statements with a hyperlink at the bottom of the page.
• Keep content updated. One way to quickly lose credibility is to have information on your website that is clearly outdated. Maybe there are links that no longer work or information that is no longer relevant. Perhaps the calendar of events still hasn’t been updated and still includes information from previous months. This is a cue for readers that maintaining the website isn’t a big priority for you and that much of the information might not be accurate. In addition to updating the information, swapping out new pictures or videos is a great way to keep the website fresh, demonstrating an active online presence and an effort to continually engage with your target audience.

Activity 13.2

Identify a local organization or company that you are familiar with and write down a few things that you know about this company. What do they do? What do you think is their mission? What are some ways that you would describe this company’s brand?

Now visit the website and consider the messaging that is available there. How does the website develop the organization’s brand? In what ways does it help visitors navigate the site? What key information is available on the site that would be important for first-time visitors?

Now draw a rough sketch of the organization’s site map. This should include the main menu items that are available from the home page as well as secondary and tertiary pages that stem from those menu items.

How are content items organized into similar groupings? Does this make it easier to navigate the website? Are there any pages that seem to be missing or out of place?

Finally, evaluate the site and its use of the genre conventions listed above. See if you can find an example of each genre convention and explain how you think this might be useful in helping the organization meet its overall communication goals.

While blogs are often housed as part of a larger website and utilize similar genre conventions, they are listed here as a separate genre because their rhetorical function is a little different. For most organizations, the purpose of a blog is to further develop their brand with the target audience, strengthen their credibility in a particular area of expertise, solidify connections with readers through meaningful content, and increase traffic to their website (Cardenas). One of the genre conventions listed above for a website is to keep the content “fresh.” However, this might be difficult to do on the larger website since the overall mission and service offerings aren’t likely to change very often. Posting blog articles every week or so is a great strategy for keeping the content fresh, offering readers new and relevant information, and getting people to come back again and again to your website, where they are more likely to not only read the article but also follow your call to action at the end to get more information, share your blog post with others, or buy a product.

Before we get into the genre conventions of a blog post, let’s talk about niche. All successful blogs have a particular niche or an area of focus (Connell). It helps build their brand as an expert in a particular field or topic, and it keeps readers in the target audience, who are also interested in learning about that particular topic, engaged. For instance, there are quite a few travel bloggers on various platforms who write about their experiences in various travel destinations, providing travel tips and an overview of things to do and see. Their “niche” is travel, which means that if they suddenly began posting about DIY projects around the house or gardening tips, their audience would be confused. Their brand as a travel expert would be weakened by messaging that doesn’t relate. This is a mistake that many novice bloggers make—trying to write about a lot of different things, which makes their blog somewhat eclectic and scattered. It might do a good job demonstrating their own interests and experiences, which might engage that person’s immediate family and friends, but it won’t be as effective in attracting other followers.

Obviously, whatever niche you pick should relate directly to your brand—either your individual brand if you are developing your own website and blog or your organizational brand. A hardware store, for instance, might develop a blog around DIY projects and home repairs, which is a way of developing expertise in that area and showcasing the products they have available for those jobs. Readers get useful information about how to do these types of projects, and they are more likely to visit the store to get individualized advice or buy specific tools. Similarly, a daycare might focus on a blog about childhood development and best practices for engaging with different age groups. A university might write a blog about student success, with topics related to academics, financial aid, housing, and so on. A local yoga studio might write a blog about different yoga techniques, benefits, basic exercises, and underlying principles, which would be of great interest to people who are interested in trying yoga. It provides them with useful content and it positions the yoga studio as an expert in this area who is genuinely interested in helping people be successful.

While it’s important to have a focused niche, you also want your topic selection to be broad enough that there are lots of new and interesting things to write about in that area. That way, you can easily post a new blog article every week or so. All of the examples above could be developed into very robust and dynamic blogs because there is so much room to write about various topics. The university blog about student success, for instance, is a very flexible niche. Blog articles could be about time management, how to decode a syllabus, how to schedule classes, how to understand graduation requirements, how to effectively study for an exam, how to get a meaningful internship, and on and on. Specific article topics in that larger niche would be never-ending and provide lots of meaningful information for current students, prospective students, and parents, who would develop a deeper connection with the university as they continue to engage with the blog. As you are considering your own niche, a good test would be to see whether you can come up with 10–15 article ideas within that niche. If you can’t, it might be a sign that your niche is too narrow and that you need to expand it a little more. For example, student success is a lot more broad of a niche than study skills. DIY is a much broader niche than window replacement. It might take some time to land on the right niche that is narrow enough to build your brand and yet broad enough that there are lots of things you could write about.

Once the overall niche is established, there are several standard genre conventions that most blog posts follow, which, once again, are directly related to the primary goal of engaging readers and persuading them to take some sort of action. Every genre convention is rhetorical in the fact that it influences the way that a reader will respond to the message. Some important genre conventions for a blog article include the following:

• Stay focused. A blog article should clearly relate back to the niche you’ve established and it should stay focused on the topic that it advertises in the title and the introduction. While blogs come in varying lengths, some as short as 300 words and others as long as 2,000 words, they should stay focused on the topic at hand and avoid unnecessary tangents. While longer blogs might spend more time developing background information or elaborating on each subpoint, everything should clearly work together to develop one main idea that you think will be of value to your target audience.
• Chunk your content. While staying focused on one key idea, it’s also useful for readers if blog articles are broken down into subsections with clear headings that make it easy to follow along with the structure of the article. For instance, a blog article about the cognitive benefits of yoga might begin with a brief hook about the obvious physical benefits of yoga and then transition into the little-known fact that it also benefits cognition. It might then have a section that defines “What Is Cognition,” followed by subsections that identify some of the main cognitive benefits: “Improved Memory,” “Better Focus,” “Enhanced Problem-Solving.” Each of these headings would help categorize different parts of the article so that it’s easier to follow. Each section might then have three to five short paragraphs focused on that particular subtopic.
• Be concise. Once again, you want to be concise with your writing. Keep paragraphs short with two to four sentences each. Use bullets when appropriate. Use simple sentence structures, and find ways to eliminate unnecessary words and phrases. Certainly, it might happen that you need to add words to your blog post to hit your desired word count (as blog articles should generally be consistent from one post to the next), but that doesn’t mean filling up the article with “fluff.” Instead, you’d add examples, statistics, or descriptions that add meaning and keep readers interested.
• Have an engaging, specific title. Blog titles engage readers because they are clear about the value proposition—the thing that readers will gain from reading the article. For instance, an article titled “Ten Best Travel Destinations on the East Coast” or “Reduce Your Debt in Three Easy Steps” are both very specific titles that tell readers exactly what the articles are about and how readers will benefit from reading them. This, in turn, is more likely to attract readers than titles that are vague or obscure.
• Use hyperlinks. Your blog article should be well researched and be transparent about where your information came from. Yes, you are building your own brand as an expert in a particular area, but it also greatly enhances your own credibility when you are able to link to other credible sources that support your ideas. The key word here is “credible,” meaning that you might connect to a recent study, a reputable organization, another well-known expert, a recent new article, and so on. You wouldn’t link to content that is old or where it is difficult to identify who the author is. You’d also avoid websites with a clear financial motive or bias. You might also avoid linking to a competing blog or company website that might steal readers’ focus. Hyperlinks can also be used internally as a way to link readers to relevant information on the website or previous blog articles about a particular topic. You’d want to be sparing with this to avoid too much self-promotion and writing that comes across as disingenuous, but a couple of internal links here and there could be useful to further engage readers.
• Write in a friendly, conversational tone. Blogs are generally less formal than the content of an organization’s website, which gives you the freedom to be more conversational. This is a great way to engage readers and build a rapport. If done well, it can also help develop your brand in particular ways. Generally speaking, a more conversational tone is more accessible. You’d avoid jargon and long-winded complex sentences that might otherwise come across as pretentious. You’d also have the opportunity to use language that’s a little more lighthearted and fun. However, you’d still want to maintain a level of professionalism, maintaining a focus on the main idea of the article and providing relevant information and hyperlinks to supporting information. Depending on the context, you might also want to avoid first person, which is completely appropriate for a personal blog but would come across as confusing and a little too informal for an organization’s blog.
• Post pictures and other visuals. Once again, pictures that are relevant to the content provided can be a great way of engaging readers and deepening their level of understanding. Charts, tables, and other graphics can also be a great way to break up written text.
• Proofread. Yes, a blog is more informal, but that doesn’t mean you can relax your standards for correct grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Proofreading errors can be incredibly distracting, making it difficult to understand a text and diminishing the credibility of the author. Do your due diligence and proofread carefully.
• Update often. While other parts of a website tend to be more static, meaning they aren’t updated very often, a blog is meant to be dynamic with new content added consistently. Be sure to date your blog posts and provide new content every couple of weeks. This is crucial to reader engagement as well as other communication goals related to branding, increased traffic to your website, and the overall customer journey.
• End with a CTA. Remember that a lot of digital messaging ends with a call to action, explicitly directing readers to the next steps they should take and providing a clear path to take that action, usually in the form of a hyperlink. Many companies have boilerplate information that goes at the bottom of a blog article, meaning that it’s repeated word-for-word every time, perhaps reminding readers of their overall mission, the ways that they can help customers with specific tasks, and directing them to resources where they can find more information and get in touch with an associate.

Social Media Posts

You’re probably familiar with the ways that individuals use social media platforms to post personal updates and photos, documenting important events or finding ways to connect with a larger group of family members and friends. While chapter 2 in this textbook dives into the positive and negative effects of social media usage from a personal perspective, this section focuses more on the genre conventions of social media posts from a professional perspective. Not surprisingly, the majority of businesses both large and small use social media as a key aspect of their marketing strategy because it’s a quick and inexpensive way to engage with customers, and it leverages algorithms and user-driven data to provide targeted marketing to the people who are most likely to be interested in their products and services (Turner). Also, as the LinkedIn article by Josh Turner confirms, the advantages go both ways. Customers also benefit from the ability to quickly connect with a business, and it affords a platform for them to share useful content and reviews with their own followers.

One reason that social media marketing is so popular is because it’s an incredibly effective way to reach people in the target audience with updates and engaging content that will (ideally) drive them to the website. Thus, companies are very intentional about their social media presence, selecting platforms where their target audience is likely to be and planning out content that will effectively grab their attention. Since there are literally hundreds of social media platforms, it doesn’t make sense that an organization would have an account on every single one. Instead, they’d do some research into the target market to find out which social media sites are most popular (Dean) and how certain demographics tend to use which platforms (Barnhart). For instance, a yoga studio would probably be most interested in targeting women in their thirties and forties, so they would focus on the social media platforms that women in their target market use.

Another key aspect of social media marketing is consistency. Some businesses post on social media every day in order to continuously engage with new and existing customers. However, they need meaningful content to post. That’s why many organizations create a social media calendar where they plan out the content they will post for the next month, often to promote upcoming events or report on recent organizational news (Kenan). However, to fill in the gaps in between events, many organizations will utilize content buckets , where they consider the different types of content they want to feature each month (Chickering). For instance, one bucket might be employee profiles, another bucket could be customer testimonials, and yet another bucket could be product highlights or an expert tip of some kind. However many buckets there are, content would be created so that a certain number of posts go into each bucket and then are placed on the monthly calendar to ensure that there are a variety of posts with unique content from one day to the next.

Finally, social media posts must be appropriate for the specific platform. For instance, LinkedIn is a social media platform geared toward professional advancement, highlighting career opportunities and professional development, so it wouldn’t be an appropriate place to highlight the latest yoga technique. The same goes for platforms like Tinder or Flixster. The content of your post should match the overall theme of the platform. Similarly, you’d want to match the specific genre conventions of a specific platform. There are far too many to list out here, so some general guidelines are listed below. Before posting on a social media platform you aren’t familiar with, you should get a clear sense of the types of the format that is most appropriate. X and Facebook, for instance, are more conducive to text-based posts, while Instagram is focused more on photos. YouTube is obviously geared toward videos. While you want your message to stand out to your target audience in a positive way, creating messaging that isn’t appropriate for a given platform will likely create confusion and weaken your credibility.

Specific platforms aside, there are some best practices for social media posts that span across all platforms:

• Be concise. Yes, this is a theme across all digital writing, but it’s especially true for social media platforms where readers tend to continuously scroll through their feed. You want to catch their attention right away and make it easy for them to quickly get the main idea of your post—probably in a sentence or two. X is a good example of a platform that limits the amount of characters you can use for each post, pushing users to be as succinct as possible. Other platforms don’t impose those limits, but they do collapse longer posts so that users have to click “read more” to see the entire post. Often readers don’t, and if they do, they will quickly move on if they are confronted with a wall of text.
• Use hashtags. You probably don’t want to overdo it with 7 to 10 hashtags, but having two or three hashtags (indicated by the # symbol) is a great way to connect the content of your post to other groups and to spread your message to larger audiences. Most platforms have a way for you to research popular hashtags for given topics so that you can use them appropriately.
• Title your post. Individual social media posts don’t usually have a title, but professional posts often do because it focuses readers’ attention and provides the same value proposition that a blog title does.
• Use appealing images. Readers are more likely to read your post if you engage their interest with a picture. For instance, a travel agency that posts an ad about “Affordable Beach Bungalows” would probably garner a lot more interest if they featured tropical pictures of happy vacationers lounging on their own bungalows. Some posts also use short videos and influencer testimonials to grab people’s attention.
• Give full URLs . Unless you have a button at the bottom of the post (which is often a good idea), social media platforms don’t use hyperlinks. If you want to link to a website, you have to give the full URL.
• Give a call to action. Once again, social media posts often give a call to action for people to learn more, which often links to a website or email address.
• Be engaged. As people in your audience engage with your post, commenting on the content, asking questions, giving reviews, then you should occasionally respond. You might not be able to respond to every single comment, but your presence will create a positive impression that you are genuinely interested in connecting with people. You might also receive more likes and followers if you are intentional about making connections with other people and organizations that are in your community or that are somehow complementary to your organization. They, in turn, would be more compelled to follow, like, and share your social media posts.

Activity 13.3

Do a little bit of research about a company and its digital marketing efforts. This could be the same company that you selected for the website activity above or it could be something different, but it should be an organization that has a large enough digital media presence that it has a blog as well as social media accounts on a couple of different platforms. It might also be a company that you receive emails (or text messages) from, so you get a larger sense of this company’s content strategy.

What strikes you about the consistency across these digital messages? In what ways are they similar or obviously working toward similar purposes? How do they link to one another? What makes each piece distinct? And how do specific genre conventions aid in reader engagement and readability.

Now create another piece of collateral messaging for this company—perhaps a social media post or an email about an upcoming event or sale. You could also consider additional topics for the company’s blog and maybe even outline one. Do your best to fit in with the established brand of this organization and to follow the genre conventions outlined above.

A Final Note about Genre

Of course, this chapter didn’t cover every digital writing genre. There are simply too many to cover. What’s more, the idea of genre gets even more complex when you consider the countless genres in specialized fields. For instance, while there are some basic principles that hold true for all websites, there are also different types of websites that have their own set of conventions. A university website, for instance, is substantially different from that of a restaurant, local charity, or used car dealership. A university would obviously post pictures of campus life, give details about the application process, and post specialized information about different majors and graduation requirements. When you look across a bunch of different university websites, you’ll see that most of them are organized in very similar ways and that they use very similar language to explain these concepts. Another example might be fitness blogs or churches’ Facebook posts. These too will be unique, having particular qualities that are unique that that more narrowed genre.

The point is that if you are confronted with a genre that you aren’t familiar with—as will probably happen at some point—then you can easily gather information from other examples in that genre and evaluate which elements seem to define it. What types of content are typical? What about graphic elements? Tone of voice? Design elements? Organizational structures? Once you understand the concept of genre, then you can evaluate new forms of writing and apply those genre conventions with confidence.

Discussion Questions

• What is a genre? What is the purpose of identifying standard elements of a particular genre? How do you think understanding genre can help you become a better writer?
• Define a genre convention and give some examples from a genre of your choosing. How do specific conventions aid the reader’s experience and facilitate larger rhetorical goals?
• What does it mean to say that a genre convention serves a social function?
• What are the major rhetorical functions of a website? Give examples to show how specific elements on a typical website work toward these larger goals.
• Identify the primary genre conventions for a website. Which ones were you already familiar with? Which ones are new or perhaps less obvious?
• What does it mean that a blog writer usually develops a niche? How does this relate to things like branding and audience engagement?
• Why is social media marketing so popular for many businesses? What are some content strategies that help keep audiences engaged?
• Name some of the genre conventions that are consistent across different forms of digital writing. Which ones are unique to genres such as emails, blog posts, and social media posts?
• How can you apply the concept of genre conventions in order to learn to write effectively in new genres as they emerge?

Barnhart, Brent. “Social Media Demographics to Inform Your Brand’s Strategy in 2022.” Sproutsocial.com , 2 Mar. 2022, https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#pinterest-demographics .

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Cardenas, Nicole. “What is the Purpose of a Blog?” Axiapr.com , 28 Aug. 2020, https://www.axiapr.com/blog/what-is-the-purpose-of-a-blog#:~:text=A%20blog%20serves%20the%20purpose,for%20corresponding%20social%20media%20platforms .

Chickering, Talius. “What Are Content Buckets?” Issuu.com , 21 July 2021, https://issuu.com/blog/content-buckets .

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Dean, Brian. “Social Network Usage & Growth Statistics: How Many People Use Social Media in 2022?” Backlinko.com , 10 Oct. 2021, https://backlinko.com/social-media-users#most-popular-social-media-platforms .

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Forsey, Caroline. “How To Develop a Content Strategy in 7 Steps: A Start-To-Finish Guide.” Hubspot.com , 23 Nov 2023, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing-plan#:~:text=What%20is%20content%20strategy%3F,engaged%20even%20after%20a%20purchase .

Google Search Central. “How to Write Meta Descriptions.” Google.com , n.d., https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet .

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———. “The Inverted Pyramid Structure.” Purdue.edu , 2022, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/the_inverted_pyramid.html#:~:text=The%20inverted%20pyramid%20structure%20simply,in%20the%20following%20nut%20graphs .

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Writing for Digital Media by Cara Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The 4 Main Types of Writing Styles and How to Use Them as a Writer

Understanding the 4 main types of writing styles can help you grow as a writer and attract an audience for your written work. Here’s how to identify each style of writing and tips for using each of the 4 common writing styles to develop your written skills.

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One of the things that can help you grow as a writer is to learn the 4 main types of writing styles and use the characteristics of each to further develop your own personal voice as a writer.

By learning how to use the different writing styles in your work, you will not only improve your skills as writer, but also learn ways to better connect with your audience of readers.

In this post we’ll cover the 4 main types of writing styles and how to use them as a writer to create compelling books, stories, essays, poetry, articles and more.

What are Writing Styles?

Writing styles are basically another way of saying the form or type of written work you are creating. Think of it as a classification for being able to identify what kind of writing you are creating.

For example, if you are writing a cookbook, that is a completely different style of writing than if you were writing a steamy romance novel!

Each writing style has a different purpose – and therefore, different characteristics are present when you are writing each type of different work.

Now that we understand what a writing style is – let’s talk about the 4 main writing styles which are commonly talked about amongst writers and literary educators.

The 4 Main Writing Styles & What They Mean

The four main writing styles which are commonly recognized are expository , descriptive , narrative , and persuasive .

Style #1: Expository

The definition of expository is this: “intended to explain or describe something.”

Most types of written work that fall into this category explain something in more detail, or provide insight and instruction in regards to a particular topic.

What types of writing fall into this category of expository writing style?

While there are many different types of written work which can be categorized as expository style of writing, you can often identify this type of writing by noticing the purpose of the work.

• Does the work intend to explain something in more detail?
• Does the written piece inform?
• Does the written piece answer questions such as “what, how and why?”

Here are some examples of the different types of writing pieces which can fall into the category of expository writing:

• Newspaper and Magazine Articles {not including editorials}
• Non-Fiction Books
• How-To Books
• Self Help Books
• Writing about Hobbies & Interests
• Recipes & Cookbooks
• Instructional Guides
• Scientific Research
• Textbooks & Educational Resources
• Business Articles & Books
• Medical Research, Journals and Articles

When you write expository style pieces, your main goal as a writer is to inform your readers with insight and facts that pertain to the subject of your piece.

For example, if you are writing about the history of ice cream, you would be including a lot of research and fun facts into your piece.

Note that this type of writing style is not intended to persuade or influence your audience. In writing your piece on the history of ice cream, you would NOT be trying to persuade your readers.

You would not want to say things like “Everybody should eat ice cream!” and “These 5 reasons will convince you forever to choose strawberry swirl flavored ice cream as your favorite flavor.”

Sometimes it can be confusing on whether an article is expository or persuasive. For example, an article called “The 5 Unexpected Health Benefits of Ice Cream” – would not fall into expository writing, even though it is providing information.

The word “benefits” has a positive connotation to the title. If you were to be writing an article on possible health benefits on ice cream, it would be very important that you as the writer keep your opinion separated from the facts and information if you plan for it to be an expository style piece. To be expository in nature, you would want to use a title such as “Scientists Research The Health Effects of Ice Cream.”

Books and articles that explain how to do something are also very popular examples of expository writing. Cookbooks are very popular, as they explain to others the tips, techniques, and recipes on how to cook something. How-to books for hobbies and crafts are also a good example of this type of writing.

Style #2: Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing goes deeper than expository writing. While expository writing might have some descriptive details and factual information, descriptive writing will make use of many writing elements and literary devices such as metaphors and similes.

The purpose and goal of descriptive writing is to bring your reader into the written work as if the reader were to be experiencing it first hand.

Most fictional pieces fall under the category of descriptive writing, and even some non-fiction pieces such as memoirs and creative non-fiction can fall under the category of a descriptive writing style.

If you are writing fiction, the more descriptive you can be with your words, the more relatable your story will be to the reader.

For example, we recommend that writers ask their characters questions as one way to really intimately understand the details about a character. Details about the setting, events, and people present in a story will help your readers be able to imagine and understand the piece.

This style also includes poetry. If you browse through some of our poetry writing prompts , you will see there is a lot of attention put on using details to create a scene or feeling in writing a poem!

Here are some examples of types of descriptive writing pieces:

• Poetry & Prose
• Travel Diaries
• Personal Journals
• Lyrics in Music and Songwriting

Most pieces using only a descriptive writing style are not very long. It is uncommon for a fictional novel to be 100% fully descriptive without getting into our next writing style, which is narrative writing.

Style #3: Narrative Writing

Narrative writing is far more complex that simple descriptive writing.

While a poem for example may describe a scene or even events or people – generally you do not get into the deep inner thoughts of the characters or even get a full story with a clear middle, beginning, and end complete with conflict and dialogue.

Nearly all fiction novels fall into the case of narrative writing, as well as longer epic poems and sagas.

In narrative writing, there is a story to be told – a clear plot complete with setting, characters, dialogue, conflict and resolution. A narrative piece often has a timeline or sequence of events which further build to the point of conflict and resolution.

Here are some examples of the works which would be considered to have a narrative writing style:

• Fiction Novels
• Memoirs & Biographies
• Screenplays
• Myths, Legends, and Fables
• Historical accounts
• Essays which talk about a lesson learned or valuable insight from an experience

Narrative writing pieces are generally easy to identify, although sometimes it can be confused with descriptive writing styles. The key difference in determining which one a written work might be is whether or not there is a developed storyline or plot.

If there is a well developed plot and storyline, you are most likely reading narrative writing.

Style #4: Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a type of writing style where the purpose is to influence someone into believing or doing something. As the word “persuasive” suggests – your goal is to persuade someone’s actions or thoughts to align with your own goals as the writer.

The persuasive writing essay is a popular homework assignment for many kids. For example, a student might be assigned to write an essay to convince their parents of something. “Why We Should Get a Pet Rabbit” and “5 Reasons You Should Not Make Me Clean My Room”.

Persuasive writing is intended to convince someone of something, and so it usually needs to have a good bit of research and logical analysis – but also should attempt to make an emotional connection to the desired audience as well.

A classic piece of writing which serves as an example of persuasive writing is Thomas Paine’s book Common Sense , which was written in the Colonial times of the American Revolutionary War, urging citizens that separating from England was of utmost importance.

Here are some examples of types of writing which are persuasive writing:

• Editorial & Opinion pieces in Newspapers and Magazines
• Essays on a specific belief or “hot button” topic
• Letters written to request an action or file a complaint
• Advertisements {Convincing you to buy something}
• Copywriting {Note, copywriting is different from copyright!}
• Company Brochures
• Business Proposals
• Political speeches

When the intention of the work is to convince the audience of something – this falls into persuasive writing.

How to Use the 4 Main Different Writing Styles as a Writer

Now that we know the different types of writing styles, you may be wondering how do you use each style?

The first thing to do is think about what you are planning to write and what the intention is. What is your goal and what type of message are you trying to communicate to your readers?

Expository Style Writing:

In this type of writing your goal is to inform your readers about research or data.

When writing expository style pieces, follow these guidelines:

• Avoid using words which have a positive or negative connotation
• Do not insert your opinion or attempt to persuade your audience into thinking, feeling, or doing something based on your beliefs
• Use research and cite your sources
• When writing online, link to additional resources or websites
• Use quotes, illustrations or informative graphics to highlight the information
• Give concise and clear directions

Descriptive Writing Style:

This type of writing has the goal to describe something and bring into your reader’s imaginations

Here are some tips for writing with descriptive writing styles:

• Use literary devices such as metaphors and similes.
• Use well thought out adjectives and adverbs to describe nouns and verbs.
• Bring attention to small details
• Use the 6 senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, sound, and feeling

Narrative Writing Style:

In narrative writing style, your goal is to convey a storyline to your readers.

Here is how to achieve this type of writing style:

• Outline a storyline, plot or timeline sequence of events
• Include detailed descriptions of your characters and scenes
• Give your readers insight into the inner thoughts or behind-the-scenes information to elements of your story
• Answer the 6 W questions in your writing: Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why?
• Make it so your piece of work conveys an important lesson or insight – what is the moral of the story? What was the outcome of this experience?
• Use concrete language which gives readers a specific image to visualize and relate to

Persuasive Writing Style:

When you are writing to persuade, your intention is to convince your readers to side with you. This can be as simple as convincing them to buy your latest new product, or even writing about important social and humanitarian issues.

Here are some tips for writing persuasively:

• Include information, data, and facts to back up your argument
• Cite your sources and give readers access to additional information
• Appeal to your readers on an emotional level – how will siding with your opinion connect with them and make them feel?
• Take into consideration your reader’s needs, wants, and desires and how your message will help your reader achieve these.

Understanding Writing Styles Can Help You Be a Better Writer

No matter what type of writing you enjoy creating – understanding the basic main 4 types of writing styles can help you become a better writer.

If you are writing a how-to article for example, you will be able to understand what types of elements to ensure your piece of work includes. If you’re writing a descriptive poem, knowing what type of language to use can help convey your message for abstract concepts.

Use these different writing styles as a fun writing exercise!

Even if you typically only write for one style, it can be a lot of fun to push yourself to try to write for the different types of styles. For example, try writing a persuasive essay, and then a descriptive essay on the same topic. It can also be fun to write a descriptive poem and then turn it into a narrative essay or short story.

Not sure what to write about using these different writing styles? We have TONS of ideas for you with many different writing prompts! Check out our list of 365 writing prompts ideas which are sure to inspire your creative muse!

Using prompts is a great way to help you start writing in different writing styles and push yourself to a new exciting challenge for your writing skills!

I hope this article about the different writing styles and how you can use them as a writer will be helpful for you in building and developing your written skillset.

What types of writing styles do you enjoy writing the most? Have any tips for writing in expository, descriptive, narrative or persuasive styles of writing? We’d love to hear your ideas and experiences in the comments section below!

Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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15 comments.

Enjoyed reading this artice. I stumbled across this website by chance and I don’t regret it. Best thing I read today. I am sure this information will be pretty helpful for my Notes in future. Thank you. 👍

Thank you! Glad you found it helpful 🙂

I am grateful I came across this article. It will come in handy in my writing work

Great! This is very helpful.

I am glad it is helpful for you Nazz!

I teach English to non-native speakers and I stress, on a regular basis, about the value of being able to write as well as speak. So when I stumbled across this article I had to post it to my linkedIn page.

Very informative article! Thank you.

Wow! Very exciting article. This help me rebuild my bad foundation. I have really had hard times writing a piece to finish. I never get to communicate my message the way i intend to because i get to a cross road of how best to relate with my audience with clarity. Quite EXPOSITORY! thanks

It’s really helpful 😊 it’s worth.

very helpful

To which writing style would a conversational manner apply best?

A writing that talks about the cages people Live can be classified as what type?

Great work!

Thanks Very useful It will be very helpful for me as a writer. I really appreciate this words of wisdom and knowledge. It was very insightful.

An article one can easily connect with. It brings clarity and understanding to the different writing styles as discussed. Kudos.

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Web Writing Style Guide

What is good web writing, focus on essential messages, style and tune up your sentences, use headings to break up text, write meaningful links, use images effectively, make content accessible, check your work, get technical and find help, additional resources.

← Web Content Guidelines

Good web writing:

• is like a conversation . Think of your content as a focused conversation started by a busy person. When users come with questions, you provide answers. When users come to do a task, you help them. But because you aren't there in person, you have to build your side of the conversation into the site.
• answers people's questions . If you think of the web as a conversation, you'll realize that much content is meant to answer people's questions. You do not want pages of FAQs. You do want to think about what people come wanting to know and how to give them that information as concisely and clearly as possible.
• lets people grab and go . Breaking information into pieces for different users, topics, and needs help patrons grab just want they need and go on to look up their next question, do their next task, make a decision, or whatever comes next.

Web writing is more informal than other formats. For the Duke University Libraries, you should aim for a voice that is clear, credible, trustworthy, and welcoming.

Our web content is an extension of our interaction with users. We also apply our User Service Philosophy to web content.

Most people come to the web for information, not for a complete document. They don't want the user manual; they want instructions for the task they are doing. They want usable, manageable pieces. Ginny Redish,  Letting Go of the Words

Web users trying to grab and go prefer inverted pyramid style to traditional narrative style (Redish, 2007)

Use these guidelines for writing style

• If you are telling people something about themselves, talk to users. Use "you."
• When referring to yourself or the Libraries, use plural pronouns: "we", "us."
• Define unfamiliar terms. Many terms we use in the library world are unfamiliar to outsiders. Don't expect everyone to understand. When in doubt, put a brief definition in parentheses.
• Avoid acronyms and abbreviations, except when they are significantly shorter or common parlance. (Common parlance among librarians doesn't count.)
• Be consistent. Use the same word or phrase to describe the same thing, and always spell it the same way.

Use these conventions for grammatical choices

• When listing items, use the serial or Oxford comma .
• Use Title Casing for the top-most title of the webpage. This is where Drupal asks you to list a required "Title*" above the page content.
• Use Sentence casing for subsequent ( H2 , H3 ) headings.
• Use one space between sentences, not two.

Use emphasis rarely and with intention

• Use bold sparingly. Bold should be used for headings and then sparingly for any other emphasis.
• Italics should also be used sparingly. Avoid making long paragraphs italic – you are making the text harder to read, not giving it emphasis. Exceptions are book titles.
• Do not underline text. On the web, underline means a link.
• Use all caps sparingly. Research shows that all caps are harder to read than mixed case.
• Don’t emphasize too much. If you use bolded headings, short paragraphs, and bulleted lists, you should not need to rely on italics, all caps, or underlining for emphasis. These styles can make the page look messy and compete for the user’s attention.
• Avoid exclamation points. We all know Duke is awesome! We love it! But let the content speak for itself.

Using headings is a critical part of good and accessible web writing. Headings allow users to determine what a block of text is about before they invest time to read it.

• Make sure headings are tagged properly in HTML as H2 or H3 . Do not style body text manually to look like a heading.
• Good headings are not trivial to write! Consider headings that are (1) questions that users may have or (2) statements or key messages.
• Ideally, use noun and noun phrase headings sparingly. For instructions, use action phrase headings.
• Do not use more than two levels of headings (below the title). In Drupal pages, use H2 and H3 for sub-headings, as titles are H1 .
• Write the heading with words that users already know. Avoid unfamiliar terminology.

How do you know if you have good headings?

• Read only the headings on your page. Do you understand what each heading means by itself?
• Do the headings tell a coherent story?
• Do they successfully give you the big picture? Can you get the gist of all the information from the headings?
• Do they distinguish different sections? If you wanted only some of the information, is it clear where you would go for that information?
• Link, link, and link to relevant information. If you mention a summer reading program, link to it. If you mention a faculty member, link to their bio page. Don’t make people search for something that you mention if it already has a page.
• Make your links contextual. Use part of the actual referencing sentence as the link. Research shows that users like them to be 4-8 words in length.
• Avoid burying links. Placing a link in the middle of a block of text is a good way to keep people from seeing it. Instead, consider placing it at the top, the bottom, or on its own line.
• In general, links should load in the existing page ("parent"), rather than open a new tab or window.
• Images on the web can be used to show an exact item (such as the shirt you are shopping for), illustrate a concept or process (how to check out a book), display a graph or map, or simply convey a mood.
• Whenever possible, use pictures of people interacting instead of abstract building images.
• Make sure you have copyright permissions to use any picture.
• Find ways to style your images in the Visual Style Guide . Images in this page are styled using <img class="img-thumbnail"> .

Four places to find images

From dul flickr.

From Duke Webdam

From Unsplash

Good web writing and design makes web content more accessible to everyone. The guidelines above are written with accessibility in mind, particularly with regard to users who are using screen-readers to navigate the web. ( What is a screen reader? )

• Excellent headers make web content easier to skim. This is particularly true for users with screen-readers, who can tab through headings to find the information they want. If headings are not embedded in the HTML of the page or document, the screen reader will not be able to identify headings.
• Screen readers can pull out all the hyperlinks on a page. This is one reason why writing informative link titles is important! Imagine scraping a list of links only to yield a series of "Click here"s and "More here"s!
• Avoid posting PDFs on the web to convey content, unless you are sharing a document. PDFs are optimized for print. They can be accessible to screen-readers, but it requires a bit of set-up.
• When posting images that convey substantive information, use alt text in the HTML code of the image to communicate the messages of the images. If the image does not convey substantive information, there is no need for alt text.
• All good writing is re-writing. When you think you are done, look again. Cut your text to the most essential messages. Follow Steve Krug's Third Law of Usability: "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left."
• As much as time allows: read your work out loud, let the writing sit for a couple days and return to it, or ask a colleague for edits.
• Review the Content Essentials Checklist .
• Verify names, dates, phone numbers, etc., and double-check them for accuracy.
• Keep your content up-to-date. Out-of-date content reflects poorly on the user’s overall opinion of the website and the Libraries. It also makes the information there appear less trustworthy. If you post something that needs to be updated later, mark it on your calendar so you don’t forget. Give yourself the time necessary to update your content.

Toggle between "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG; "wizzy-wig") and other formats here

• Like a style you see in a Drupal page but don't know how to re-create it? If permissions allow, take a look at the HTML page in the "Edit" view. Just don't save any changes.
• Styles shown on the Duke University Libraries Visual Style Guide are curated from a larger selection of Bootstrap visual styles . You can find more ways to style lists there.
• Drupal adds unnecessary spaces after some elements, such as hyperlinks. This is a known bug. They can be removed permanently by editing changing your editing view from WYSIWYG to HTML and not switching back, but this is a time-consuming effort that is not expected of you.
• Stuck, have a question, or just want a second opinion? Submit a ticket to ServiceNow ( support.lib.duke.edu ), and someone with expertise with work with you. Select "Digital Projects & Web Services" as the category for your ticket.
• Web Style Guide, 3rd Edition (full-text online) by Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton
• Chicago Manual of Style Online (electronic resource: Duke access only)
• Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability , 2nd Edition, by Steve Krug
• Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works , by Janice (Ginny) Redish
• Writing for the Web research from the Nielson Norman Group

Adapted and expanded from Letting Go of the Words by Janice Redish and Hampshire College's Web Writing Style Guide

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Website Content

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Types of Web Writing

January 24, 2023 • Chris Gabryszewski

Website content is a fundamental piece of any digital marketing strategy. Think of it like having a brick-and-mortar store or location. Customers come to browse your offerings, get a feel for whether or not they trust you, and learn more about your products or services. You want to make sure that your location is clean, easy to navigate, and staffed with friendly and helpful employees.

Websites are no different; your visitors are looking for the same experience as though they were at your physical store. They want helpful information that is easy to access. And while it can be tempting to keep your website as an afterthought, your digital presence is often your customers’ first experience with your brand. In fact, according to Think with Google , 51% of shoppers use Google to research products and services before making a purchasing decision.

Writing quality, helpful content is necessary to engage your digital audience. But how do you know what to write, how to write it, and how to make sure your audience sees it? That’s what we’ll be covering in this guide to the different types of content writing for the web. Let’s get started!

What Is Web Content Writing?

Web content writers communicate information through digital media, such as website blogs, videos, and images. The desired characteristics of web writing are often that the content:

• Clearly communicates important information
• Quickly and directly answers questions
• Positions your business as a source of authority in your industry
• Provides a call-to-action and persuades your audience to take it

Your web content is often how your audience develops a first impression with your business, so you want to make a good one. As a rule of thumb, you can think about your own experience researching online.

Do you keep reading articles that don’t answer the questions they promise to? How do you feel about repetitive jargon or keyword stuffing? Are you likely to trust a company that places more emphasis on their call to action than providing important information? Start with what you know works for you, see how your audience reacts, then be willing to adapt.

Main Types of Content Writing for the Web

There are many different types of content you can write to publish on the web, including (but not limited to) these web writing examples:

• Product descriptions
• Social media posts
• Search engine and social media ads
• Newsletters
• Sales collateral

In successful marketing strategies, these types of content rarely stand alone. Instead, different types of content can work together to reach your audience through the platforms they prefer. When deciding which types of content to write, you can also break down categories into owned, paid, and earned.

• Owned media is content that is published on your website, such as blog posts and product descriptions. Owned media has the advantage of existing for free after you create it. In other words, you don’t have to keep paying for visibility. However, your overall reach will be lower since your audience will have to visit your site to see your content.
• Paid media is content that is hosted on a platform you don’t own, so you have to continuously pay for visibility. Search engine and social media ads are common examples of this type of content. While paid media does require ongoing investment, you can also reach a larger audience more quickly.
• Earned media combines some of the benefits of owned and paid media. Earned media is content that someone else creates about your business, so you don’t have to pay to write or publish it. Think customer testimonials. Someone else took the time to write a glowing review of your business, which you can publish on your website or in your email newsletter.

What Are the 3 Types of Writing Styles?

When writing web content for business purposes, there are three common styles:

• Informational: This writing style seeks to answer the questions that your audience is asking clearly and concisely. FAQ pages and ultimate guide blogs are a great way to establish your business as the source of information your audience is interested in. Effective informational writing avoids unnecessary jargon and wordy sentences, prioritizing education over sales.
• Instructional: Instructional writing focuses on providing easy-to-follow steps for a process. Common examples of this style include how-to videos on YouTube and ebooks. Instructional content can be a great way to position your products or services as part of a solution.
• Persuasive: This writing style is designed to convince your reader to either agree with your position or to take a desired action. In many cases, you will want your content to persuade your audience to either engage with more of your content or to make a purchase. Writing persuasively requires a careful approach. If you come across as pushy, then you’ll drive your audience away. However, if you don’t include a call-to-action, then your audience won’t know what steps they can take. A good approach to persuasive content is to start with an informational focus, then transition to a call-to-action at the end.

Within each piece of web content, you can combine multiple styles. For example, an informational blog could include a step-by-step process that links to your product page.

Types of Content Writing Services

You can rely on an in-house writing team to create web content, or you can partner with marketing agencies or freelancers to bring your brand to life in the digital space. The right solution for your business will strike the right balance of time and financial resources. For example, hiring out writing projects can be more cost effective than having full-time writers, but you will still need time for your subject matter experts to meet with the people responsible for communicating your message.

Whichever type of service you choose, it’s important to work with writers that understand the value of data. DemandJump gives content writers the data they need to connect with the right audience. Our platform breaks down keywords by search volume, priority, and how you and your competitors are currently ranking for them on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is especially valuable when choosing topics to write a series of blogs about, but you can also use this information to decide what topics to cover in other types of content, like video and graphics.

Take the guesswork out of content marketing today.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, understanding the 4 writing styles: how to identify and use them.

General Education

A piece’s writing style can help you figure out what kind of writing it is, what its purpose is, and how the author’s voice is unique. With so many different types of writing, you may think it’s difficult to figure out the specific writing style of a piece or you'll need to search through a long list of writing styles.

However, there are actually just four main types of writing styles, and together they cover practically all the writing you see, from textbooks to novels, to billboards and more.  Whether you’re studying writing styles for class or trying to develop your own writing style and looking for information, we’ve got you covered.

In this guide, we explain the four styles of writing, provide examples for each one, go over the one thing you need to know to identify writing style, and give tips to help you develop your own unique style of writing.

The 4 Types of Writing

There are four main different styles of writing. We discuss each of them below, list where you’re likely to see them, and include an example so you can see for yourself what each of the writing styles looks like.

Writers who use the narrative style are telling a story with a plot and characters. It’s the most common writing style for fiction, although nonfiction can also be narrative writing as long as its focus is on characters, what they do, and what happens to them.

Common Places You’d See Narrative Writing

• Biography or autobiography
• Short stories
• Journals or diaries

“We had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gayety with the cold ale. ‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?’ cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty years?’    ‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’ ‘But it’s so hot,’ insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, ‘and everything’s so confused. Let’s all go to town!’ - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

You can quickly tell that this passage from the novel The Great Gatsby is an example of narrative writing because it has the two key traits: characters and a plot. The group is discussing eating and drinking while trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day.

As in this example, narrative writing often has extended dialogue scenes since the dialogue is used to move the plot along and give readers greater insight into the characters.

Writers use the expository style when they are trying to explain a concept. Expository writing is fact-based and doesn’t include the author’s opinions or background. It’s basically giving facts from the writer to the reader.

Common Places You’d See Expository Writing

• Newspaper articles
• Academic journals
• Business memos
• Manuals for electronics
• How-to books and articles

“The 1995/1996 reintroduction of gray wolves (Canis lupus) into Yellowstone National Park after a 70 year absence has allowed for studies of tri-trophic cascades involving wolves, elk (Cervus elaphus), and plant species such as aspen (Populus tremuloides), cottonwoods (Populus spp.), and willows (Salix spp.). To investigate the status of this cascade, in September of 2010 we repeated an earlier survey of aspen and measured browsing and heights of young aspen in 97 stands along four streams in the Lamar River catchment of the park’s northern winter range. We found that browsing on the five tallest young aspen in each stand decreased from 100% of all measured leaders in 1998 to means of <25% in the uplands and <20% in riparian areas by 2010. Correspondingly, aspen recruitment (i.e., growth of seedlings/sprouts above the browse level of ungulates) increased as browsing decreased over time in these same stands.” -”Trophic cascades in Yellowstone: The first 15 years after wolf reintroduction” by William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta

This abstract from an academic journal article is clearly expository because it only focuses on facts. The authors aren’t giving their opinion of wolves of Yellowstone, they’re not telling a story about the wolves, and the only descriptions are number of trees, streams, etc. so readers can understand the study better.

Because expository writing is focused on facts, without any unnecessary details or stories, the writing can sometimes feel dense and dry to read.

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is, as you may guess, when the author describes something. The writer could be describing a place, person, or an object, but descriptive writing will always include lots of details so the reader can get a clear and complete idea of what is being written about.

Common Places You’d See Descriptive Writing

• Fiction passages that describe something

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit hole and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted...” - The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

This is the opening passage of the novel The Hobbit . While The Hobbit is primarily an example of narrative writing, since it explores the adventures of the hobbit and his companions, this scene is definitely descriptive. There is no plot or action going on in this passage; the point is to explain to readers exactly what the hobbit’s home looks like so they can get a clear picture of it while they read. There are lots of details, including the color of the door and exactly where the doorknob is placed.

You won’t often find long pieces of writing that are purely descriptive writing, since they’d be pretty boring to read (nothing would happen in them), instead many pieces of writing, including The Hobbit , will primarily be one of the other writing styles with some descriptive writing passages scattered throughout.

When you’re trying to persuade the reader to think a certain way or do a certain thing, you’ll use persuasive writing to try to convince them.  Your end goal could be to get the reader to purchase something you’re selling, give you a job, give an acquaintance of yours a job, or simply agree with your opinion on a topic.

Common Places You’d See Persuasive Writing

• Advertisements
• Cover letters
• Opinion articles/letters to the editor
• Letters of recommendation
• Reviews of books/movies/restaurants etc.
• Letter to a politician

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ - “This was their finest hour” by Winston Churchill

In this excerpt from his famous “Their finest hour” speech, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is clearing trying to convince his audience to see his viewpoint, and he lays out the actions he thinks they should take. In this case, Churchill is speaking to the House of Commons (knowing many other British people would also hear the speech), and he’s trying to prepare the British for the coming war and convince them how important it is to fight.

He emphasizes how important the fight will be (“Upon this battle depends the survival of the Christian civilization.” and clearly spells out what he thinks his audience should do (“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties…”).

Common Writing Styles to Know

Each of the four main types of writing styles has multiple subsets of styles within it. Here are nine of the most common and important types of writing you’ll see.

Narrative Writing

Character voice.

Character voice is a common writing style in novels. Instead of having an unknown narrator, the audience knows who is telling the story. This first-person narrator can help the reader relate more both to the narrator and the storyline since knowing who is telling a story can help the reader feel more connected to it. Sometimes the narrator is completely truthful in telling what happens, while other times they are an unreliable narrator and will mislead or outright lie to readers to make themselves look better. 

To Kill a Mockingbird (Scout is the narrator) and The Hunger Games (Katniss is the narrator) are two examples of this writing style.

Stream-of-Consciousness

This writing style attempts to emulate the thought process of the character. Instead of only writing about what the character says or does, stream-of-consciousness will include all or most of the characters thoughts, even if they jump from one topic to another randomly or include incomplete thoughts.

For example, rather than writing “I decided to take a walk to the ice cream shop,” an author using the stream-of-consciousness writing style could write, “It’s pretty hot out, and I feel like I should eat something, but I’m not really that hungry. I wonder if we have leftovers of the burgers Mom made last night? Is Mom staying late at work tonight? I can’t remember if she said. Ice cream would be a good choice, and not too filling. I can’t drive there though because my car is still in for repairs. Why is the repair shop taking so long? I should have listened when David said to check for reviews online before choosing a place. I should text David later to see how he is. He’ll think I’m mad at him if I don’t. I guess I’ll just have to walk to the shop.”

James Joyce and William Faulkner are two of the most well-known writers to have regularly used the  stream-of-consciousness writing style.

Epistolary writing uses a series of documents, such as letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, or even text messages to tell a story. They don’t have a narrator, there’s just whoever purportedly gathered the documents together. This writing style can provide different points of view because a different person can be the author of each document.

Well-known examples of epistolary writing include the novels Dracula  (written as a series of letters, newspaper articles, and diary entries) and Frankenstein (written as a series of letters).

Expository Writing

You’ll find this style in textbooks or academic journal articles. It’ll focus on teaching a topic or discussing an experiment,  be heavy on facts, and include any sources it cited to get the information. Academic writing often assumes some previous knowledge of the topic and is more focused on providing information than being entertaining, which can make it difficult to read and understand at times.

Business writing refers to the writing done in a workplace. It can include reports, memos, and press releases. Business writing typically has a formal tone and standard formatting rules. Because employees are presumably very busy at work, business writing is very concise and to the point, without any additional flourishes intended to make the writing more interesting.

You’ll see this writing style most commonly in newspaper articles. It focuses on giving the facts in a concise, clear, and easy-to-understand way. Journalists often try to balance covering all the key facts, keeping their articles brief, and making the audience interested in the story.

This writing style is used to give information to people in a specific field, such as an explanation of a new computer programming system to people who work in software, a description of how to install pipes within a house for plumbers, or a guide to new gene modifications for microbiologists.

Technical writing is highly specialized for a certain occupational field. It assumes a high level of knowledge on the topic, and it focuses on sharing large amounts of information with the reader. If you’re not in that field, technical writing can be nearly impossible to understand because of the jargon and references to topics and facts you likely don’t know.

Descriptive Writing

Poetry is one of the most challenging styles of writing to define since it can come in many forms. In general, poems use rhythmic language and careful word choice to express an idea. A poem can be an example of descriptive writing or narrative writing, depending on whether it’s describing something or telling a story. Poetry doesn’t need to rhyme, and it often won’t follow standard grammatical or structural rules. Line breaks can, and often do, occur in the middle of sentences.

Persuasive Writing

Copywriting.

Copywriting is writing that is done for advertising or marketing purposes. It’s attempting to get the reader to buy whatever the writer is trying to sell. Examples of copywriting include catalogs, billboards, ads in newspapers or magazines, and social media ads.

In an attempt to get the reader to spend their money, copywriters may use techniques such as descriptive language (“This vanilla was harvested from the lush and exotic island of Madagascar"), exciting language (Stop what you’re doing and learn about this new product that will transform your life!”) and exaggeration (“This is the best cup of coffee you will ever taste!”).

Opinion 

People write opinion pieces for the purpose of stating their beliefs on a certain topic and to try to get readers to agree with them. You can see opinion pieces in newspaper opinion sections, certain blog posts, and some social media posts. The quality of opinion writing can vary widely. Some papers or sites will only publish opinion pieces if all the facts in them can be backed up by evidence, but other opinion pieces, especially those that are self-published online, don't go through any fact-checking process and can include inaccuracies and misinformation.

What If You’re Unsure of a Work’s Writing Style?

If you’re reading a piece of writing and are unsure of its main writing style, how can you figure which style it is? The best method is to think about what the purpose or main idea of the writing is. Each of the four main writing styles has a specific purpose:

• Descriptive: to describe things
• Expository: to give facts
• Narrative: to tell a story
• Persuasive: to convince the reader of something

Here’s an example of a passage with a somewhat ambiguous writing style:

It can be tricky to determine the writing style of many poems since poetry is so varied and can fit many styles. For this poem, you might at first think it has a narrative writing style, since it begins with a narrator mentioning a walk he took after church. Character + plot = narrative writing style, right?

Before you decide, you need to read the entire passage. Once you do, it’ll become clear that there really isn’t much narrative. There’s a narrator, and he’s taking a walk to get a birch from another man, but that’s about all we have for character development and plot. We don’t know anything about the narrator or his friend’s personality, what’s going to happen next, what his motivations are, etc.

The poem doesn’t devote any space to that, instead, the majority of the lines are spent describing the scene. The narrator mentions the heat, scent of sap, the sound of frogs, what the ground is like, etc. It’s clear that, since the majority of the piece is dedicated to describing the scene, this is an example of descriptive writing.

How Can You Develop Your Own Writing Style?

A distinctive writing style is one of the hallmarks of a good writer, but how can you develop your own? Below are four tips to follow.

Read Many Different Styles of Writing

If you don’t read lots of different kinds of writing, you won’t be able to write in those styles, so before you try to get your own writing style, read different writing styles than what you’re used to.  This doesn’t mean that, if you mostly read novels, you suddenly need to shift to reading computer manuals. Instead, you can try to read novels that use unreliable narrators, stream-of-consciousness writing, etc.

The more you read, the more writing styles you’ll be exposed to, and the easier it’ll be able to combine some of those into your own writing style.

Consider Combining Multiple Types of Writing Styles

There’s no rule that you can only use one style for a piece of writing. In fact, many longer works will include multiple styles. A novel may be primarily narrative, but it can also contain highly descriptive passages as well as expository parts when the author wants the readers to understand a new concept.

However, make sure you don’t jump around too much. A paper or book that goes from dense academic text to impassioned plea for a cause to a story about your childhood and back again will confuse readers and make it difficult for them to understand the point you’re trying to make.

Find a Balance Between Comfort and Boundary-Pushing

You should write in a style that feels natural to you, since that will be what comes most easily and what feels most authentic to the reader. An academic who never ventures outside the city trying to write a book from the perspective of a weathered, unschooled cowboy may end up with writing that seems fake and forced.

A great way to change up your writing and see where it can be improved is to rewrite certain parts in a new writing style.  If you’ve been writing a novel with narrative voice, change a few scenes to stream-of-consciousness, then think about how it felt to be using that style and if you think it improved your writing or gave you any new ideas. If you’re worried that some writing you did is dull and lacking depth, add in a few passages that are purely descriptive and see if they help bring the writing to life.

You don’t always need to do this, and you don’t need to keep the new additions in what you wrote, but trying new things will help you get a better idea of what you want your own style to be like.

The best way to develop your own writing style is to expose yourself to numerous types of writing, both through reading and writing. As you come into contact with more writing styles and try them out for yourself, you’ll naturally begin to develop a writing style that you feel comfortable with.

Summary: The 4 Different Styles of Writing

There are four main writing styles, and each has a different purpose:

If you’re struggling to figure out the writing style of a piece, ask yourself what its purpose is and why the author wants you to read it.

To develop your own writing style, you should:

• Read widely
• Consider mixing styles
• Balance writing what you know and trying new things

What's Next?

Literary devices are also an important part of understanding writing styles. Learn the 24 literary devices you must know by reading our guide on literary devices.

Writing a research paper for school but not sure what to write about?   Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you. 

Are you reading  The Great Gatsby for class or even just for fun?  Then you'll definitely want to check out our expert guides on the biggest themes in this classic book, from love and relationships to money and materialism .

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Types of Technical Documents

Web pages: content & design.

As a technical writer, your duties may range from writing copy to be posted online to actually designing a web page or website. No matter what the scope of the technical writing project is, you need to create user-friendly content and user-friendly design.

Initial Usability Testing

Usability testing always occurs at the end of web page development. However, starting to test a site before it is built will help avoid some problems before you put a lot of effort into the site. You may want to use focus groups for initial usability testing or, if you do not have access to a focus group, share your ideas with people who might be potential users and ask for their insight. Find out what people expect from your site. Users may need something different than what you were preparing to create. Potential users can give you additional ideas; for example, you can find out what words best resonate with your audience. Testing is key to building a web page. If you can, get input from potential users so you’ll have a better site from the start.

User-Friendly Content

Developing usable online content requires a strategic approach. Content not only includes the words on the page but also the images and multimedia that are used. It’s important to understand how what you are creating fits into the overall content strategy of the web page or web site, what the content life cycle entails, and who is involved in the process.

Your first step in developing information is always research. You need to consult to determine the content strategy for the web page. Who is the intended audience? What’s the intended purpose of the web page? To inform? To persuade? To sell? What particular concept should be emphasized, the one idea that the organization wants all users who visit the web page to understand? Consulting about key words that users might use as search terms is one way of identifying important concepts. Determine the stakeholders involved with the web page. You may need to consult with various departments in the organization in order to get a sense of the information that’s needed to meet the page’s purpose.

You also need to ask about the web page’s upkeep. Who will maintain the content after you create it—you or others? How often will the content be reviewed and updated? Maintenance, review, and updating are important aspects that let you know whether you should put time-sensitive information on the page.

And, you need to consult about the page’s style. Should you rely more heavily or more equally on images or language in order to present content that addresses the web page’s purpose and audience? For example, The Sierra Club’s main page relies on photographs and headings that offer main concepts, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency places more language and links on its main page. Each approach is consistent with its organization’s purpose and content strategy.

People come to your website with a specific task in mind. When developing your site’s content, keep your users’ tasks in mind and write to ensure you are helping them accomplish those tasks. If your website doesn’t help them complete that task, they’ll leave. Conduct market research, perform a task analysis and analyze metrics to better understand what users are looking to accomplish. Knowing your users’ top tasks can help you identify:

• Content to feature on your homepage or landing pages
• Page headers and sub headers
• A logical structure to each page’s content

Make sure to read usability.gov’s pages on  Task Analysis  and Web Analytics Basics for fuller information on the important process of task analysis.

Overall, each piece of content should:

• Reflect the organization’s goals and user’s needs . You can discover your user’s needs through conducting market research, user research, and analyzing web metrics.
• Understand how users think and speak about a subject.  Content should ideally be created and structured based on user testing. Doing this will also help you with search engine optimization (SEO).
• Be useful . Each piece of content should have a purpose; omit needless content.
• Be factual and ethical. Information should be valid and should not intentionally mislead or in any way skew the facts being presented.
• Be up to date.  When new information becomes available, update your content or archive it.

User-friendly content also depends on the language in which that content is presented. When writing for the web, use plain language to allows users to find what they need, understand what they have found, and then use it to meet their needs. Language should also be actionable, findable, and shareable.

• Use the words your users use.  By using keywords that your users use, you will help them understand the copy and will help optimize your page for search engines.
• Use pronouns . The user is “you.” The organization or government agency is “we.” This creates cleaner sentence structure and more approachable content.
• Use active voice . Present the “actor” performing the action, e.g., “The board proposed the regulation,” not “The regulation was proposed by the board.”
• Use short sentences and paragraphs . The ideal standard is no more than 20 words per sentence, five sentences per paragraph. Use dashes instead of semi-colons or, better yet, break the sentence into two. It’s OK to start a sentence with “and,” “but,” or “or” if it makes things clear and brief.
• Use bullets and numbered lists . Don’t limit using a list to just long lists. One sentence with two bullets is easier to read than three sentences.
• Use clear headlines and subheads . Questions, especially those with pronouns, are particularly effective.

Remember that developing web copy in plain language in the federal government is the law. There’s a Checklist for Plain Language on the Web along with some federal department style guides offer information about the government’s plain language standard.

User-Friendly Design

Design deals with the layout and placement of information on the page. Good design is crucial to creating an effective web page, since you need to anticipate and guide how users will read.  Users generally scan and navigate a web page in all different directions, not necessarily left to right or top to bottom. There are a few design basics to keep in mind as you’re developing content, basics that will help you when you consider your content’s placement on the page:

• Chunk your content.  Chunking makes your content more scannable by breaking it into manageable sections.
• Front-load the important information . Use the journalism model of the “inverted pyramid.” Start with the content that is most important to your audience, and then provide additional details.
• Use images, diagrams, or multimedia  to visually represent ideas in the content and to direct users’ eyes to important information.

Once you have content, consider how to place it on the page. Wireframing, creating a mock-up, and testing your page on different devices will help you create user-friendly design.

Wireframing

Figuring out the page design is called “wireframing.” The following video explains one person’s process of wireframing—in this case, seeing the process illustrates the process more than about it (and that’s the kind of decision you need to make about web page content and how it’s presented).

Note that while a lot of specialized software exists, you can create a wireframe in Word or simply by drawing. The important thing is to optimize the placement of content on the page to address both your purpose and your users’ needs.

As you start considering how to place your content, keep in mind that tasks (what the user has come to the page looking for) that are most important and/or most commonly sought should be the main focal points of the page. The least important information, usually consisting of contacts, site map, terms of use, etc., usually goes at the bottom, because if some users need that information, they’ll specifically search for it.

Consider as well whether you want columns in which to place content, or text across the page. Many web pages use columns of some sort based on readability studies such as Design Guidelines for Web Readability that say to “avoid horizontal scrolling.” [2]  Whether or not you use columns, don’t create content that consists of large blocks of text extending the width of the screen. Offer succinct content in small units.

Also remember that you’ll need to create spaces in your wireframe for headings, navigation, images, and media as well as text. Wireframing is useful because the basic layout helps you see white space as well as content placement; you can determine if you have enough white space to emphasize and separate information. An overriding concept is to keep the design as clean, simple, and easy to use as possible.

Once you have your basic design, you can do a mock-up of the page, which includes the actual content, colors, and type fonts, to see if they present the information to effectively address your purpose and your audience’s needs. At the mock-up stage, consider the design message or brand, the image the organization wants to portray to the reader. When creating the look of the web page you must use logos, colors, fonts, and images that support the personality of the organization. After you complete your mock-up, move to the actual web page creation.

Web Page Test

Final Usability Testing

Once you think you have user-friendly content and design, move into usability testing with as many potential users as you have available.  Again, you may want to use focus groups or observation strategies. Refer to the page on Usability for fuller information.

• Web Pages, adapted from usability.gov, OER Commons, Technical Writing, and WikiBooks; attributions below. Authored by : Susan Oaks. Provided by : Empire State College, SUNY. Project : Technical Writing. License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• Writing for the Web. Provided by : usability.gov, U.S. General Services Administration. Located at : https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/writing-for-the-web.html . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Content Strategy Basics. Provided by : usability.gov, U.S. General Services Administration . Located at : https://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/content-strategy.html . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Create a Website. Provided by : OER Commons. Located at : https://www.oercommons.org/courseware/lesson/21588/overview . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Considerations for Website Writing. Authored by : Elizabeth Lohman. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/technicalwriting/chapter/unit-1-web-sites_lecture-2/ . Project : Technical Writing. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Website Design. Authored by : WikiBooks. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/technicalwriting/chapter/unit-1_websites_readings-2/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• image of computer screen showing a web page . Authored by : Coffee Bean. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/web-design-facebook-facebook-page-1953128/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of people bent over a table discussing what's on a laptop screen. Authored by : Sanu A S. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/people-discussion-meeting-discussion-5069845/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of people seated at a table, looking at a laptop screen. Authored by : jamesoladujoye. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/meeting-informal-business-team-1702638/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• video How to wireframe a website. Provided by : CharliMarieTV. Located at : https://youtu.be/PmmQjLqJQlY . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
• image of a wireframe. Authored by : Pexels. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/plans-design-web-design-designer-1867745/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• image of the same photograph in hard copy, on a web page, and on an iphone screen. Authored by : ptra. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/communication-mockup-design-device-2824850/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved

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Writing for the Web: Best Practices

People read much slower online than when reading from an actual piece of paper. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that people skim instead of read from their digital screens.

Web content writers need to keep this in mind, while also applying the fundamentals of effective writing that work in any format.

Here are some best practices for writing for the web.

Know Your Audience

Throughout the writing process, you must always consider your audience.

U.S. government websites are for everyone, so you writing should be as straightforward as possible.

Stick to commonly used words and define technical terms if you need to use them

Provide context for your reader, especially when writing about a complex topic that few people have knowledge about

Use culturally preferred words and phrases (e.g.,"American Indian and Alaska Native")

Use gender-neutral wording (e.g., "they," "them," "their") and avoid terms and phrases that indicate gender bias

It's also important to realize that published online content isn’t ever “done” in a traditional sense because web pages aren't static entities.

To ensure that your content is helping users, you need to keep updating it over time. You should regularly monitor website analytics and engage in social listening to see what's resonating with users and what's not.

Use Plain Language

When we use words people understand, our content is more findable, accessible and inclusive.

The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal agencies to use clear government communication that the public can understand and use.

Word Choice

When we use jargon in our writing, we risk losing users’ trust. Government, legal, business jargon are often vague or unfamiliar to users, and can lead to misinterpretation.

Instead, you should:

• Use words most readers would understand
• Use keywords that most users would be searching for
• Avoid turning verbs into nouns, a common sign of governmentese at work

At Indian Affairs, we like to communicate in a friendly, straightforward way. We consider our voice to be:

• Authoritative
• Conversational
• Instructive
• Welcoming to all audiences

We believe that government communication can and should be fun and easy to read, and our voice represents this.

Your voice is a constant, but your tone is a variable For example, an annoucement about the opening of a new community center will be writiten with a different tone than a obituary for a prominent community member.

Regardless of the type of writing, you should strive to be:

• Incisive but human
• Serious but not pompous or emotionless

You should be particularly careful with adjectives, which can be subjective and make the text sound more emotive and like spin. You also need to be careful about sounding too friendly, which can lead to a lack of precision and unnecessary words.

Use Active Voice 

Our writing should be concise and direct. We prefer the active voice because it supports brevity and makes written content more engaging too,

The active voice helps the reader identify the subject of the sentence.

• Passive: "The request form must be submitted to the approving official."
• Active: "You must submit the request form to the approving official."

Along with deemphasizing who should take an action, the passive voice is usually longer too. Wordy instructions are harder to follow.

However, you may occasionally need to use the passive voice to soften an error message or make something easier to understand.

• Forms issued by the Office of Government Ethics include the OGE-450 and the OGE-278.
• The agency is required to respond to requests within 20 working days.

Rewording either of these sentences to use the active voice would complicate the sentence or pull focus away from its main point.

To make your content easier to read and understand, you should be as succinct as possible without sounding terse.

You should:

• Use contractions (such as "can’t" and "won’t")
• Use short sentences (check sentences with more than 25 words to see if you can split them for clarity)

Choosing Keywords

Web content is always a work in progress that requires constant refinement.

The needs of users change and so will the keywords that they use when searching for information online.

You can use Google or Bing to check for the most commonly searched terms for your topic, but you should write in a way that addresses users' keyword intent and not simply to see how many relevant words you can include in your writing. Your chosen keywords should be used in way that seems natural to your readers.

Keyword frequency isn't the most important factor for getting your web page to rank at the top of search results. The quality and authority of your written content matters much more.

It's true that .gov sites tend to rank well since the federal government is the authoritative source for official forms and information on certain topics, but writing effectively and choosing the right search terms is still necessary.

Suggestions for Choosing Keywords

• Figure out why the user is searching. Is it to find information? Is it get somewhere? Is it to buy something? Is it to compare things?
• Avoid technical or obscure terms that most people won't search for
• For those with experience in search engine optimization, try to find the right balance between using more competitive short-tail keywords and less competive long-tail keywords
• Use Google analytics to analyze user search patterns

Structuring Content

To avoid long walls of text that can feel time-consuming and intimidating to read, you should break up your content in chunks that are easier to digest.

The idea of chunking comes from cognitive psychology. It allows for easy skimming, which is users’ preferred way of reading online.

Suggestions for chunking text content:

• Write short paragraphs (no more than five sentences) with white space to separate them
• Use subheadings and bulleted lists to group related items together

Inverted Pyramid Structure

The “inverted pyramid” structure has a long history in traditional news writing and is still frequently used today. In this structure, the “base” of the pyramid — the most important information — appear at the top of the story in the opening paragraph. Less essential information appears in the following paragraphs in order of importance.

You can apply this structure when writing many types of web content by putting the critical or noteworthy text first and then adding in the details later. Your reader will thank you for getting to the point.

Bulleted Lists

Bulleted lists are easier to read that long blocks of text and allow users to quickly scan your web page for important information.

Other Structures

There are many ways to help guide a reader in a logical way.

When a user is looking to apply for a service online, it's helpful to organize content in steps so that a user understands the order of tasks that they should complete in the application process.

There may also be times when content should be presented in chronological order like when you want to write about the history of a business or group of people.

Writing Headlines and Subheadings

Many people will never read through an entire web page. Users are looking for information that they need, and it's the responsibility of the writer to make that process easier.

Writing clear and interesting headlines and subheadings help to achieve that goal.

Headlines draw people into your writing and let them know they’re in the right place.

Suggestions for Better Headlines

• Write headlines that are as unique, specific, and informative as possible so that users know excactly where they are
• Avoid using any difficult or unfamiliar words
• Include search terms that are common for the topic of your web page
• Keep your headline short if you can
• Use ‘ing’ in headlines if the page is about taking an action

Subheadings

Subheadings have a similar purpose to headlines — to reinforce the idea that users are where they should be.

They also establish a hierarchy for your web page that makes it easier for readers to scan long lines of text and still understand the content.

• Keep subheadings short, just like headlines
• Include more search terms that are common for the topic of your page
• Tell the reader what to expect next
• Keep subheadings consistent (e.g., use a similar structure or numbered steps)
• Check that your text still makes sense without the subheading

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Last updated on Feb 07, 2023

The 50+ Best Writing Websites of 2024

The Internet is full of writing websites and blogs to help people reach their creative goals . If you’ve always dreamt of writing your own book, but don’t know how to get there — or if you’re in the process of writing, but feel unsure about what to do next — then it’s your lucky day! Here we have all the best writing websites of 2024 in one single place for your convenience. They’re also organized by category, and alphabetically within each of those categories, to make each one easier to find. Enjoy!

Best writing websites for writing craft and inspiration

1. Almost an Author

Offering up new content every day, Almost an Author covers a grand scope of writing topics. From genre-specific advice to emotional support on your writing journey, there's tons of useful info here for beginner and veteran writers alike.

2. Association of Writer & Writing Programs

Having just marked their 50th anniversary, AWP is one of the premier authorities on writing. The AWP website provides resources and ample opportunities for authors, teachers, and students at every point in their career. Here you’ll be able to find information about writing programs, career options, and conferences all over the world. Keep in mind, though, that access to some of these features is restricted to members only.

3. Creativity Portal

This is a wonderful hub for creative resources that has been around for a whopping nineteen years! Here you can find writing prompts , creative coaching, printable writing templates, and interviews with authors that will help nourish the right side of your brain.

4. Daily Writing Tips

As the name suggests, this site offers daily writing tips ranging from open-ended prompts and exercises to grammar, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. It also covers all writing levels and professions, so it doesn't matter how far along you are in your writing career — DWT is sure to help you out.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a master’s degree, you can get your own "DIY MFA" right here! This site (founded by Gabriela Pereira ) aims to cover everything you would learn in a graduate program, while giving you the freedom to choose your own areas of concentration and allocate your time as you please. 

6. Electric Literature

While not exactly a craft-focused website — so no straight-up writing advice or prompts — this nonprofit digital publisher showcases literature-related essays, criticism, and recommended readings. If you're looking to brush up on both literary theory and recent literary trends, Electric Lit is the place for you.

7. Fiction University

This virtual university, run by award-winning author Janice Hardy, contains tons of advice and concrete examples to help authors build a strong writing foundation. It's full of blog posts by professionals who share their own processes and techniques, providing tips not just on what you should do as a writer, but on how  to make it happen.

8. Helping Writers Become Authors

Longtime author K.M. Weiland offers writing advice that ranges from outlining and structuring to characterization and dialogue — plus all the little details in between. She updates her blog faithfully with topical posts that would pique any writer's (or non-writer's) interest.

9. Insecure Writer's Support Group

Writing is intimidating for everyone , whether you're a multi-published author or you're just starting out. That's why getting support, guidance, and motivation throughout the process is vital! On IWSG, you'll discover a wealth of information on writing, publishing, marketing, and anything else you might need to ultimately overcome your insecurities.

10. Literary Hub

LitHub boasts a superb selection of content for all things literary. Here you can get all the latest book-related news, posts on design and the craft, your daily dose of fiction, and sparkling reviews of new works. One of this site's best features is its section on literature in translation — a great resource for those who want to read books and authors from around the world.

11. LitReactor

The LitReactor blog consists of writing classes, workshops, and a myriad of posts on writing and books ( some of which are even written by us! ). There’s also an online magazine that includes interviews, criticism and analysis, and seasonally appropriate reads and recommendations.

12. LitRejections

An unfortunate occupational hazard of with writing is rejection. This is where a site like LitRejections comes into play! It offers personal stories to help discouraged writers persevere through rejection, and maintain hope and motivation as they move forward in their careers.

13. Live Write Thrive

In this website by professional writer and editor C.S. Lakin, you’ll find plenty of nuanced writing anecdotes and tips. Lakin also supplies annotated critiques that can help you prep your book for publication.

14. NaNoWriMo

Besides serving as the official information hub for NaNoWriMo , this site also lends constant support for those struggling to "win" National Novel Writing Month. Make sure to check out the NaNoWriMo forums, which are chock-full of other people's personal writing tips and strategies to get you through November — and every other month of the year — as a writer.

15. Now Novel

This comprehensive website, founded by author Bridget McNulty , is a go-to for just about every writing-related question you might have. Here you'll also find advice, courses, and even an author dashboard where you can keep track of your own writing progress.

16. Positive Writer

If you often feel uncertain about your creative abilities, this is the site for you. Bryan Hutchinson created Positive Writer to encourage and inspire all those who want to write, no matter how much experience or confidence they have.

17. ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid offers a fantastic manuscript editing software that analyzes your writing and creates reports for you to learn from! This tool also includes a thesaurus, grammar checks, style suggestions, and more — you can learn all about it on the ProWritingAid blog, or in our review of the app !

18. She Writes

A well-established writing website with a feminist bent, She Writes is "the largest online community and content site for women writers... all around the world." The site features thoughtful posts and resources to help writers on their journeys, as well as a personal She Writes blog page for every user who signs up.

19. Well-Storied

Here you can find recent articles, workbooks, tutorials, and fascinating discussions on writing. Kristine Kieffer has an extensive archive of posts as well, where you can procure information on just about any topic related to books and writing.

20. The Write Practice

Fulfilling the promise of their name, every single post on this site emphasizes putting theory into practice! There's simply no better way to become a writer than by creating a routine, and that’s exactly what The Write Practice helps facilitate.

21. Writer’s Digest

Writer's Digest is one of the most encyclopedic writing websites out there — after all, the print magazine has been around for almost a century now! Here you’ll find genre and vocation-organized articles, events and competitions, webinars, templates, tutorials, and so much more.

22. Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed features articles by authors and industry professionals, focused specifically on the craft and business of fiction writing.

23. The Writing Cooperative

Plain and simple, this is a group of people who want to help each other become better writers. On Writing Cooperative, you will find articles that cover just about every aspect of the writing life. They also have monthly writing challenges to keep you incentivized, and there’s even a space where you can submit your own article to the blog!

24. Writing.com

This is an absolutely all-inclusive community for writers . It’s open to all levels and provides a creative, supportive environment for all members, as well as portfolios to store and display their writing. Like most writing websites, it also includes a plethora of writing tools , contests, and rewards.

25. Catapult: Don’t Write Alone

Don’t Write Alone is a blog written by the Catapult team dedicated to helping writers grow their skills. As a publisher and magazine founded in 2005, Catapult has seen a lot of works and now they’re spilling all the details. From interviews, to craft essays, to writer lifestyle essays, Catapult covers it all.

26. Kirkus Review’s Writers’ Center

Kirkus Review is known for its prestigious $50,000 dollar annual prize and its bi-monthly issues where they critique hundreds of recently published books. But, did you know they also have a section of their website devoted to helping emerging writers grow their skills and navigate the publishing industry? They’re always up to date on the latest trends — if they aren’t creating new trends themselves.

27. Writers Write

An invaluable resource for creative writers, business writers, or bloggers, Writers Write offers over 1400 articles, courses, and workbooks to help you take your writing practice to the next level. Alongside their educational content, they offer book reviews, trivia on famous authors, and prompts. Sign up for their inspirational newsletters for regular hits of motivation that will keep you writing.

28. The Narrative Arc

Beginning as a home to Andie R. Cranford’s writing journey, The Narrative Arc is now a treasure trove of practical tips and prompts to inspire your creativity. Breakdowns of popular books are particularly handy for the budding author — but whether exploring writing for the first time or tightening the bolts on your Franken-novel, the site's ideas on craft are elegant and inspiring.

Best writing websites in the publishing industry

29. Agent Query

This database allows authors to perform in-depth searches for literary agents . You can narrow your search by genre and keywords, view agents’ full profiles, and see if they are currently accepting queries — all for free!

30. The Creative Penn

Besides being a bestselling author on various topics, Joanna Penn is also a leading voice in self-publishing . On her punnily named site, you’ll find abundant information related to writing, self-publishing, marketing, and everything else you mind need to make a living as a writer.

31. Digital Pubbing

Digital Pubbing provides industry news, interviews with indie authors, and resources for learning all about ebooks and the publishing industry. In accordance with the name, this is the perfect site for any author hoping to absorb some serious digital knowledge.

32. The Independent Publishing Magazine

We know it might seem like we're repeating ourselves, but this website really is all about publishing (both independent and traditional, despite what the name indicates). Whatever info you need about self-publishing, trad pub, or hybrid publishing , you’ll definitely be able to find it here.

33. Publishers Weekly

And if you have a specific question about the publishing world, you’ll most likely find the answer here. This weekly magazine is packed full of news, reviews, announcements, and many other resources on the industry. It has been dubbed as "the Bible of the book business" and with its extensive archive, it’s easy to see why.

34. Publishing Perspectives

Publishing Perspectives is another leading source of publishing info, specializing in industry news and topical articles. Aimed at publishers, agents , and authors alike, it features a variety of posts that cover book fairs, distribution, education, and much more.

35. Query Shark

Not sure where your query letter is up to snuff? Query Shark offers the opportunity to have your query critiqued, and to read detailed query critiques of other authors' letters, so you can get the best possible results for your book. Be warned, though, that this sharp-toothed feedback isn't for the weak of heart.

36. Writer Beware

This amazingly thorough site compiles information on schemes and scams that affect authors , especially those run through email and the Internet. It’s sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, but obviously applies to authors everywhere. If you're a fresh-faced author trying to get published, definitely check it out — it could save you from losing thousands of dollars in an elaborate scam.

37. The Darling Axe

When the industry professionals at The Darling Axe aren’t working on manuscripts, they flock to the internet to share their hot takes on the publishing industry. They also host writing contests throughout the year to build a writing community and give unpublished authors the chance to get feedback from professionals.

Best writing websites for marketing and design

38. David Gaughran

An experienced author of historical adventures, short stories, and popular books for writers , David Gaughran is one of the definitive writing experts out there. His eponymous blog contains plenty of info on marketing and self-publishing, plus workshops to help aspiring authors. And similar to Writer Beware, he's the noble opposition of online publishing scams and scammers — so if you're frustrated by these issues, you'll discover a blissfully sympathetic voice on his blog.

39. Kikolani

Focused specifically on marketing, Kikolani offers tips and strategies for bloggers who want to grow their presence and attract more readers. Here you’ll find information on brand development , social media, customer retention, and other useful tips that you can put to good use as a blogger. (If you're just getting started, though, we'd recommend this course .)

40. Kindlepreneur

Dave Chesson is — in his own words — a “digital marketing nut.” His blog has all the information you could ever need about Kindle book publishing , how to write to market, increasing your rankings on Amazon, and lots more practical tips and advice.

41. Storiad

Storiad is a marketing platform that helps authors and publishers sell books. Go here for essential information on writing apps , databases, tools, and budgeting to help you run your own publishing campaign from start to finish.

42. Writers & Artists

Part of the distinguished Bloomsbury, Writers & Artists has quite a few articles on writing and the self-publishing process. They also offer editorial services and events on many different topics, like genre-specific writing courses and how to get connected with agents .

43. Your Writer Platform

Naturally, this site is dedicated to building your very own writer platform. There are tons of tips, resources, tools, how-tos, and even individual consulting services to help you build the platform that works best for you and your marketing needs.

Best writing blogs by industry professionals

44. Goins, Writer

Bestselling author Jeff Goins created this blog to share his thoughts on writing and to inspire others to chase their creative dreams. He's especially good at breaking complex topics down into digestible bits — new writers, go here for your primers.

45. Jane Friedman

With copious experience in the publishing industry, Jane Friedman offers online classes and articles on the entire process of book publishing. She's a real goldmine of business knowledge, so keep her in mind for when you're ready to publish your book.

46. Nail Your Novel

As a bestselling former ghostwriter who now publishes under her own name, Roz Morris provides advice about writing, self-publishing, and of course, ghostwriting . If you're interested in becoming a ghostwriter, be sure to check out her courses!

47. Nathan Bransford

Nathan Bransford is a former literary agent who posts all about the inner workings of publishing, as well and information on agents and self-publishing. He also does consultations, edits, and critiques . 

48. Rachelle Gardner

Skillful agent Rachelle Gardner has negotiated over 200 contracts with over twenty publishers and helped more than 100 authors fulfill their dreams of publishing. On her blog, she offers writing, publishing, and social media coaching, along with general writing and publishing tips.

49. Kris Writes

For regular insights from a New York Times bestselling author, look no further than Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog. On Mondays, she posts free short stories for authors to find inspiration in, and Wednesdays she posts in her “Business Musings” collection where she breaks down news from the publishing industry and offers her inside opinions. 

50. The Marginalian  

Maria Popova describes her site as “a record of my own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually, poetically — drawn from my extended marginalia on the search for meaning across literature, science, art, philosophy, and the various other tendrils of human thought and feeling.” She sends out a Sunday newsletter with thoughtful deconstruction of the week’s best liberal arts goings-on to help broaden her readers’ appreciation of the creative world.

51. John August

For all the screenwriters out there, John August co-hosts a weekly podcast with fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin discussing both the craft and business of screenwriting while breaking down popular movies. To help screenwriters really get a feel for the process of working with a studio, John has posted multiple versions of scripts from different stages in the production process on films and series he’s written, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Big Fish , and Chernobyl .

What are some of your favorite writing websites? Let us know in the comments below!

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WEBSITE ESSENTIALS

27 common types of websites (with templates to get you started)

• Emily Shwake
• Nov 14, 2023
• 13 min read

Get started by: Creating a website →  | Getting a domain →

When you’re facing the prospect of learning how to make a website , just getting started can be the hardest part. That’s why it’s important to take things step by step. First, you have to decide on a website idea . Then, you need to figure out what you need to make it successful.

Your website design will largely depend on what type of website you want to make and your goals for it. In this post, we’ll discuss 27 of the most common types of websites, providing examples and templates for each.

Create the perfect site for you with Wix's website builder .

Types of websites

eCommerce website

Business website

Blog website

Portfolio website

Event website

Personal website

Membership website

Nonprofit website

Informational website

Online forum

Community website

Startup website

Consulting website

Booking website

Petition website

School website

Hobby website

Interactive website

Entertainment website

Wedding website

Travel website

Directory website

Landing page website

News and magazine website

Memorial website

Subscription website

Kid-friendly website

01. eCommerce website

Build an eCommerce website and you can provide customers with a seamless shopping experience, allowing them to effortlessly browse, select and purchase products that capture their interest. You can sell your own creations or dropship products from your online store. The best eCommerce websites make the buying experience as easy as possible by offering product pages with robust imagery, enticing product descriptions and multiple payment options for you to set up your own online marketplace.

Real-life eCommerce website examples:

The Spice Suite sells gourmet spices, herbs and infused oils. Its website draws people in with bright colors while sharing the inspiring story of founder Angel Gregorio, who’s both a home cook and activist for other small business owners.

Something Good Studio offers artist-designed blankets, throws and mats. Its website dynamically illustrates the company’s mission of using art and design to encourage positive well-being, happiness and purpose.

Wix’s eCommerce website templates come complete with all the elements you need to start your store.

Learn more: How to make a bakery website

02. Business website

Even if you don't plan on selling anything in an online store, a website is still helpful for establishing an online presence, building your brand and advancing your entrepreneurship goals. When building a business website, whether for B2B or B2C, focus on the needs of your customers and explain how your company will solve their unique challenges. These l aw firm website examples show how a website can be used both to showcase your business and attract new clients.

Real-life business website example:

The Puffin Packaging business website explains that its wool-insulated packaging is an affordable, sustainable solution to polystyrene boxes. The site uses clean lines, colorful images and plenty of white space to draw the interest of its readers on both desktop and mobile.

Animal Music Studios provides music composition, sound design and audio mixing services. The website features previous projects the team has done for brands like Comcast, Infinity and Popeye’s.

These business website templates are well-equipped to bring your company to life online.

03. Blog website

Starting a blog provides a platform to share written, visual and digital content about your interests. Once you’re up and running, you might even see opportunities for monetization, such as affiliate marketing, display advertising and selling ad space. You can also share directly from your blog to your social media platforms and accounts.

"Starting a blog requires a well-thought-out strategy. Start by defining your objectives and identifying key topics based on audience demand. Prioritize content creation around these topics to maximize engagement and visibility within your niche."

Idan Cohen, SEO Growth Specialist at Wix

Real-life blog website example:

Estie Kessler uses her home blog, Abode by Estie , to turn her passion for lifestyle writing into a highly profitable business. Within her posts about interior design, travel and style, she shares affiliate links to her favorite home goods store and sells packages to readers who want to work with her design firm.

Start a blog with one of these blog website templates and learn how to make an interior design website.

04. Portfolio website

If you’re a photographer, artist or writer, a portfolio website can help you reach and impress potential employers or clients and act almost as your art resume. An online portfolio website typically include images, videos or clips that show off your best work. A portfolio website also allows you to establish your own personal branding, giving visitors a glimpse into your personality, interests and values.

Real-life portfolio website examples:

Graphical artist Lu Xinyao uses his portfolio to display his hand-drawn pictures, digital art and animations. His site shows the breadth of his artistic style, from Chinese ink to landscape illustrations.

Ryan Haskins uses his bold portfolio website to display artwork he’s created for clients such as the New York Times and Netflix.

Choose one of these portfolio website templates to showcase your work in a way that’s sure to capture attention, with either static or dynamic pages.

05. Event website

An event website enables you to generate buzz leading up to an in-person or online event as part of offline or digital marketing efforts. High-performing event websites include all the information that your attendees need to know, such as speakers, agenda, date, time and location.

Real-life event website example:

The 2023 Creative Retail Awards website allows users to easily submit award entries. A countdown clock helps to build urgency as the entry deadline nears. The site also includes an overview of the event and a description of each award.

Use one of these event website templates to start collecting RVSPs today.

06. Personal website

Whereas a portfolio website is useful for showcasing your work, a personal website is a space where you can truly be yourself. Build one to share your accomplishments, explore your interests or develop your personal brand. What you include on your personal website and web pages depends on your goals. If you’re using it to advance your career, include a resume, clips and a bio. If you’re making it for self-expression, a blog and social links might be all you need.

Real-life personal website example:

Laura Baross , a visual artist in New York City, uses her personal website to share her enthusiasm for sustainable living and zero-waste design. Her site includes a blog featuring self-portraits, a sampling of her past projects and a photography gallery.

These personal website templates will help you share your interests with the world.

07. Membership website

Membership websites are an excellent choice for businesses aiming to convert their users into loyal customers. With this website format, you can provide exclusive content and value-added resources within a password-protected section. Once a member logs in, they can access special features like premium services, online classes or members-only events.

Learn more: What is a membership website

HERoines is a membership site dedicated to helping women cultivate fundamental life skills in a safe space. Members get discounts for HERoine events, an invite to a private annual event and access to virtual challenges.

Learn how to create a membership site , then choose a membership site template that fits your needs.

08. Nonprofit website

Nonprofit websites let you share your organization's mission, vision and core values so you can activate people around your cause. For example, church websites can help you reach new and existing congregation members, while animal rescue or healthcare websites can attract donors who can further your mission.

Learn more: What is a church website , how to make a donation website , how to make a church website

Real-life nonprofit and NGO website examples:

LiteracyNYC aims to create a world where every child knows the power and joy of reading. Its website shares information about its programs and encourages support with a bold green “donate now” button.

Mammoth March , a nonprofit that hosts organized hiking events, uses its website to share its mission of helping people unplug and get out of their comfort zones through long-distance hiking challenges. The site provides event details and signup instructions. .

Uncover tips on how to create a nonprofit website with a website builder, and get inspiration from these beautiful nonprofit website templates .

09. Informational website

Informational websites are valuable resources for people looking to learn more about a specific topic, service or product. With a focus on delivering in-depth information, these websites offer long-form content that addresses readers' most pressing questions. An informational website can also establish you or your organization as an expert in your area of interest via mass communication and knowledge sharing.

Real-life informational website example:

The Wix Encyclopedia is simlar to a web directory and it offers users a comprehensive dictionary of terms used in business, marketing and web design.

Try out these news and magazine website templates to build your informational website.

10. Online forum

Online forums bring people together to discuss and exchange information around shared topics, such as technology or fitness. Forums usually include multiple discussion threads organized by topic, making it easier for users to find the subject they want to weigh in on.

Real-life business online forum example:

BE RADICAL strives to empower its members to be the very best version of themselves. Its website includes “radical support,” a series of online groups, chats and challenges where members can share their wisdom.

Use one of these online forum templates and Wix’s forum software to create a forum today.

11. Community website

With a community website, you can build trust and engagement with people who share a common cause. For example, you could build an LGBTQ+-friendly website that provides an authentic and exclusive destination for members of the community.

Real-life community website examples:

Out Agency is a team of LGBTQIA+ change agents dedicated to elevating communities, inspiring people and delivering results. Its website promotes the agency’s community-building events and diversity workshops.

Generation She focuses on creating a community of exceptional female talent that can build and lead the next generation of billion-dollar companies. Its online community offers access to career opportunities, events and mentorship.

These community website templates will come in handy as you learn how to build an online community .

12. Startup website

There are few things as invigorating as starting your own business . Creating a startup website can enable you to share that energy and introduce your game-changing idea to the world. Startup websites may include landing pages, product demos and reviews. At first they might also include a crowdfunding page, or other funding resources. Overall, your website’s overarching goal should be to attract customers and investors.

Real-life startup website example:

Ception offers construction and mining companies an AI-powered solution to increase the safety, productivity and sustainability of mobile-machinery operations. Its website spells out Ception’s value proposition, shares company news and introduces users to the startup’s founders.

Mananalu captures attention with an enticing proposition: for every aluminum bottle package purchased, the company partners with a nonprofit to offset significant amounts of plastic waste.

Use this startup website template to bring your company’s unique vision to life.

Learn more: How to make a construction website

13. Consulting website

Do you have a unique expertise you think others could benefit from? A consulting website will help you monetize it. Your website should include a list of services offered, details about your background and an explanation of who would benefit from your services. If you’re a financial advisor, you might use your site to explain how you’ll help clients protect their nest eggs. If you’re a human resources consultant, you might use it to explain how you can help businesses get more efficient.

Real-life consulting website example:

Mikaela Reuben is a culinary nutrition consultant who offers meal plans, recipes and private chef bookings. Her website includes photos, videos, testimonials and a free recipe ebook that can help her capture potential leads.

See other examples of consulting websites and use these consulting website templates to build your own.

Learn how to make a consulting website .

14. Booking website

A booking website helps you get right down to business. It allows users to sign up for classes, accommodations or services online. Booking websites let customers choose their preferred date, time and cost. They also include recommendations, reviews and contact information.

Real-life booking website example:

Nutritionist Diana Javanovic uses her booking website, Nutri Me , to make it simple for clients to register for an initial consultation, follow-up visits, 21-day detox diets and more.

This booking website template lets you add your services, reviews and contact information in a jiff.

15. Petition website

If you want to be a change-maker, a petition website can help you advocate for a cause that you hold most dear. You can use an online petition to drum up support for a political position, social justice cause or environmental issue.

Real-life petition website example:

Explain the Asterisk is a petition website that advocates for legislation mandating universities and colleges to disclose dismissals for sexual assault on a perpetrator’s transcripts. Through strategic features—such as an informative FAQ page, a compelling media section and a meticulously organized homepage—the site actively encourages visitors to sign its petition.

Once you learn how to start a petition , you can use Wix’s online form builder to create your own.

16. School website

These online resources aren’t just for primary schools and universities. School websites can also offer online teaching and information about businesses that teach things like music or foreign languages. An ideal school website design will serve as an online database for students, parents and faculty. You can also incorporate educational technology and provide online lessons or assignments for students. It’ll also encourage prospective students to enroll.

Real-life school website example:

French Mornings offers engaging and authentic content to help people boost their confidence when speaking French. The bilingual website offers how-to videos, free ebooks and paid step-by-step courses. Très bien!

These school website templates let you add courses and resources for parents and students easily.

17. Hobby website

Do you love gardening, reading or arts and crafts? A hobby website can help you share your unique interests with like-minded people. Hobby websites often include online forums, learning materials and tutorials that introduce people to a particular pursuit and offer tips for how to improve their skills. A popular hobby website can even turn a profit.

Real-life hobby website example:

Liv White turned her passion for award-winning design into Dopple Press , a business dedicated to eco-friendly screen printing.

Use this hobby website template to share your favorite activity with others.

18. Interactive website

Interactive websites use elements like graphics, games and quizzes to make users an active part of the web browsing experience. Some of the newest versions include augmented reality features. For example, some eCommerce shops now provide tools for seeing what furniture would look like in your home.

Real-life interactive website example:

Process is an interactive web experience that artist Nedavius built to showcase and support aspiring creatives. The site includes a “virtual room” where users can hover over an object to reveal additional information.

Get inspired by this highly visual interactive website template .

19. Entertainment website

Entertainment websites are among the most highly visual and interactive types of websites, designed to evoke emotion and deliver high-quality digital experiences.

Real-life entertainment website examples:

Noah Demeuldre’s eye-popping entertainment website draws people in with clips of his work, encouraging them to click the “view project” CTA button and watch the videos within.

Use Wix’s video website templates to create your entertainment website.

20. Wedding website

Creating a wedding website helps your special day into an unforgettable experience. Use it to share information with your guests, offer details about the festivities and post your registry. You can also include videos, photos and stories about your relationship and bridal party.

Learn more: What is a wedding website

Real-life wedding website example:

Lexi and Robert use their wedding website to share their story, offer details for guests and make it simple for guests to RSVP.

Spread the word about your nuptials with these wedding website templates .

21. Travel website

A travel website helps vacationers plan their dream trips. They provide information on attractions, accommodations and adventures in a specific city or town. They often include breathtaking photography and engaging videos that encourage visitors to book their trip.

Real-life travel website example:

Zion Adventure Photog offers tips for people planning an adventure through Southern Utah. The travel website includes real-life stories and adventures to showcase the amazing experiences that the region has to offer.

Use these travel website templates to create an irresistible online tourist destination today.

22. Directory website

Think of a directory website as an informational website on steroids. It provides users with comprehensive and organized lists of resources about a specific topic or industry. Examples include real estate listings, job directories or local directories. Many offer multiple categories and on-site search engines to help people find what they’re looking for faster.

Learn more: What is a real estate website

Real-life directory website example:

Gay & Sober is a web directory that provides a safe, fun and enriching experience to the sober LGBTQ+ community. The site includes a vast collection of events, meetings and support resources to help people celebrate sobriety and each other.

Launch your site today with this directory website template .

23. Landing page website

A landing page website is designed to market one specific product or service. The two most common types of landing pages are non-gated (open to anyone) and gated (people must enter details, such as their name and email address, for access). You can use a landing page to introduce a new product, attract leads or drive online traffic to a specific webpage.

Real-life landing page website example:

This landing page uses stunning illustrations, actionable language and alluring CTA buttons to encourage visitors to create a Wix account.

Use these landing page website templates to promote your products and find new customers.

24. News and magazine website

News and magazine websites offer visitors a wide range of informative and engaging content. These websites cover diverse topics such as current events, politics, business, entertainment and sports. Whether it's breaking news, in-depth features or expert analysis, news and magazine websites strive to deliver timely information to their audiences.

Real-life news and magazine website example:

The Beacon Today is a student-powered newspaper that focuses on issues related to Palm Beach Atlantic University and the surrounding area.

This news and magazine website template lets you build a customized news site in a snap.

25. Memorial website

Creating a memorial website is a heartfelt way for friends and family members to remember and honor a loved one after their passing. These sites often feature photos and a biography about the person. They also include online guest books so people can share stories about why that person made such a difference in their life. As such, memorial websites can help provide support and comfort during trying times.

Real-life memorial website example:

Memorials New York captures the memorials that New Yorkers set up throughout the city. Rather than being dedicated to one person, the site aims to honor individuals from all walks of life with photos of unofficial memorial sites and tributes that were created in their memory.

Use this memorial website template to memorialize a loved one.

26. Subscription website

From roasted coffee to complete meal kits, subscription services have become a popular staple of many people’s daily routines. With a subscription website, you can provide products or services to customers on a weekly or monthly basis. This business model is useful for establishing a reliable revenue stream while fostering a loyal customer base.

Real-life subscription website example:

Dedicated to promoting ethical farming practices, Javaboy uses its coffee subscriptions to promote small-batch, independent roasters committed to organic and fair-trade practices.

Use this subscription website template to start your unique online business.

27. Kid-friendly website

Kid-friendly websites contain appropriate content for the youngest of web users. These sites often use games, videos and other kid-friendly features to educate their visitors. Most target two types of audiences: children of a specific age range and their parents.

Real-life kid-friendly website example:

With its brightly colored product photos and interactive mega-menu, Lukiee Lou is an online store that both parents and their little ones can enjoy exploring.

Use this kid-friendly website template to start your website.

Types of websites FAQ

What are the 3 main types of websites.

The three main types of websites are:

Informational websites:  These websites provide information and resources to visitors. They can be used to educate, entertain or promote a cause.

Transactional/eCommerce websites:  These websites allow visitors to purchase products or services. They can be used to sell physical goods, digital products or services. Learn more: What is an ecommerce store

Interactive websites:  These websites allow visitors to interact with the website in some way. This can include playing games, participating in forums or leaving comments.

What is the most common type of website?

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• Published: 08 May 2024

Accurate structure prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3

• Josh Abramson   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0000-3496-6952 1   na1 ,
• Jonas Adler   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9928-3407 1   na1 ,
• Jack Dunger 1   na1 ,
• Richard Evans   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4675-8469 1   na1 ,
• Tim Green   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3227-1505 1   na1 ,
• Alexander Pritzel   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4233-9040 1   na1 ,
• Olaf Ronneberger   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4266-1515 1   na1 ,
• Lindsay Willmore   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4314-0778 1   na1 ,
• Andrew J. Ballard   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4956-5304 1 ,
• Joshua Bambrick   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0003-3908-0722 2 ,
• Sebastian W. Bodenstein 1 ,
• David A. Evans 1 ,
• Chia-Chun Hung   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5264-9165 2 ,
• Michael O’Neill 1 ,
• David Reiman   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1605-7197 1 ,
• Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8594-1074 1 ,
• Zachary Wu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2429-9812 1 ,
• Akvilė Žemgulytė 1 ,
• Eirini Arvaniti 3 ,
• Charles Beattie   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1840-054X 3 ,
• Ottavia Bertolli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8578-3216 3 ,
• Alex Bridgland 3 ,
• Alexey Cherepanov   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5227-0622 4 ,
• Miles Congreve 4 ,
• Alexander I. Cowen-Rivers 3 ,
• Andrew Cowie   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4491-1434 3 ,
• Michael Figurnov   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1386-8741 3 ,
• Fabian B. Fuchs 3 ,
• Hannah Gladman 3 ,
• Rishub Jain 3 ,
• Yousuf A. Khan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0201-2796 3 ,
• Caroline M. R. Low 4 ,
• Kuba Perlin 3 ,
• Anna Potapenko 3 ,
• Pascal Savy 4 ,
• Sukhdeep Singh 3 ,
• Adrian Stecula   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6914-6743 4 ,
• Ashok Thillaisundaram 3 ,
• Catherine Tong   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7570-4801 4 ,
• Sergei Yakneen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7827-9839 4 ,
• Ellen D. Zhong   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6345-1907 3 ,
• Michal Zielinski 3 ,
• Augustin Žídek   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0748-9684 3 ,
• Victor Bapst 1   na2 ,
• Pushmeet Kohli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7466-7997 1   na2 ,
• Max Jaderberg   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9033-2695 2   na2 ,
• Demis Hassabis   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2812-9917 1 , 2   na2 &
• John M. Jumper   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6169-6580 1   na2  

Nature ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Drug discovery
• Machine learning
• Protein structure predictions
• Structural biology

The introduction of AlphaFold 2 1 has spurred a revolution in modelling the structure of proteins and their interactions, enabling a huge range of applications in protein modelling and design 2–6 . In this paper, we describe our AlphaFold 3 model with a substantially updated diffusion-based architecture, which is capable of joint structure prediction of complexes including proteins, nucleic acids, small molecules, ions, and modified residues. The new AlphaFold model demonstrates significantly improved accuracy over many previous specialised tools: far greater accuracy on protein-ligand interactions than state of the art docking tools, much higher accuracy on protein-nucleic acid interactions than nucleic-acid-specific predictors, and significantly higher antibody-antigen prediction accuracy than AlphaFold-Multimer v2.3 7,8 . Together these results show that high accuracy modelling across biomolecular space is possible within a single unified deep learning framework.

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Author information.

These authors contributed equally: Josh Abramson, Jonas Adler, Jack Dunger, Richard Evans, Tim Green, Alexander Pritzel, Olaf Ronneberger, Lindsay Willmore

These authors jointly supervised this work: Victor Bapst, Pushmeet Kohli, Max Jaderberg, Demis Hassabis, John M. Jumper

Authors and Affiliations

Core Contributor, Google DeepMind, London, UK

Josh Abramson, Jonas Adler, Jack Dunger, Richard Evans, Tim Green, Alexander Pritzel, Olaf Ronneberger, Lindsay Willmore, Andrew J. Ballard, Sebastian W. Bodenstein, David A. Evans, Michael O’Neill, David Reiman, Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool, Zachary Wu, Akvilė Žemgulytė, Victor Bapst, Pushmeet Kohli, Demis Hassabis & John M. Jumper

Core Contributor, Isomorphic Labs, London, UK

Joshua Bambrick, Chia-Chun Hung, Max Jaderberg & Demis Hassabis

Google DeepMind, London, UK

Eirini Arvaniti, Charles Beattie, Ottavia Bertolli, Alex Bridgland, Alexander I. Cowen-Rivers, Andrew Cowie, Michael Figurnov, Fabian B. Fuchs, Hannah Gladman, Rishub Jain, Yousuf A. Khan, Kuba Perlin, Anna Potapenko, Sukhdeep Singh, Ashok Thillaisundaram, Ellen D. Zhong, Michal Zielinski & Augustin Žídek

Isomorphic Labs, London, UK

Alexey Cherepanov, Miles Congreve, Caroline M. R. Low, Pascal Savy, Adrian Stecula, Catherine Tong & Sergei Yakneen

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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Max Jaderberg , Demis Hassabis or John M. Jumper .

Supplementary information

Supplementary information.

This Supplementary Information file contains the following 9 sections: (1) Notation; (2) Data pipeline; (3) Model architecture; (4) Auxiliary heads; (5) Training and inference; (6) Evaluation; (7) Differences to AlphaFold2 and AlphaFold-Multimer; (8) Supplemental Results; and (9) Appendix: CCD Code and PDB ID tables.

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Cite this article.

Abramson, J., Adler, J., Dunger, J. et al. Accurate structure prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07487-w

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Received : 19 December 2023

Accepted : 29 April 2024

Published : 08 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07487-w

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