- Online
- $780
This course can be taken as part of the UBC Micro-certificate in Writing Skills for Digital Content: Website Strategy or as a standalone course.
The web is an integral part of our lives. Most of us browse websites daily and are consumers of web writing.
Today, web writing is a core skill required for a wide variety of jobs, including marketers, web designers, user experience (UX) professionals, digital entrepreneurs, small business owners and employees, not to mention professional and freelance writers. If you’ve ever been asked to write for a website, you’re already a web writer.
This practical course takes a deep dive into writing for the web and digital media. Understand how people read online, and the important role content plays in a visitor’s interactions with a website. Get tips, tools and best practices for writing for the web, whether it’s for an entire website, key web pages such as the homepage or landing pages, product descriptions or “About Us” copy.
You’ll come away familiar with terms like “progressive disclosure,” “chunking,” “parallel headings,” “keyword optimization” and “inverted pyramid,” and how you can use these approaches to write better web copy.
By the end of this course, you’ll know how to:
- communicate online with copy that meets both readers’ needs and communication objectives
- write in the right voice and tone
- recognize effective web content
- make edits that improve copy
- use tools and processes to make web writing easier
An entire unit of this course is dedicated to user experience (UX) writing and microcopy. UX writing is a specialized but growing field of writing and can be defined as writing that helps a user complete a task online. Mastering UX writing will give you a specialized skill for supporting visitors as they navigate online content and build a relationship with your company’s or your client’s brand.
Throughout the course, you have opportunities to hone your web writing skills through real-world assignments and detailed feedback from your instructor.
If you’re interested in Writing for the Web and Digital Media, you might also be interested in Writing for Content Marketing and Copywriting: Introduction.
Course outline
Week 1: How we read online
Week 2: Web writing rules and best practices
Week 3: Purposeful web copy
Week 4: Web copy structure and flow
Week 5: Writing homepages and landing pages
Week 6: User experience (UX) and microcopy writing
Week 7: Optimizing copy for search engines (SEO)
Week 8: Processes and tools for effective web writing
How am I assessed?
This course is marked complete/incomplete, and is based on your attendance and participation. Your instructor provides you personalized feedback on the assignments you hand in.
Record of completion
A record of completion will be emailed to students who participate and satisfy the course requirements within two weeks of the course end date. Course completion means 80% attendance and/or 80% completion of mandatory assignments.
Expected effort
Expect to spend 3–4 hours per week completing readings, exercises and assignments, and participating in online forum discussions.
Technology requirements
To take this course, you’ll need access to:
- an email account
- a computer, laptop or tablet under five years old and using Windows or macOS
- the latest version of a web browser (or previous major version release)
- a reliable internet connection.
One day before the start of your course, we’ll email you step-by-step instructions for accessing your course.
Course format
This course is 100% online and instructor supported. Course work is done independently and at your own pace within deadlines set by your instructor. Log in anytime to your course to access the lessons as they become available.
Materials will be available in Canvas for three weeks after the course ends, after which time you will no longer be able to access the course.