No matter what you're told or what you see on the rest of the Web,
remember that content is more important than than design. Most people who visit your pages are coming not to admire your Web design skills, but to
get information or to buy goods and services.
Writing Style
One of the cardinal rules of wordsmithing is "write tight." Most people break that rule, often unintentionally. They use too many words and passive sentences. Jargon and acronyms are rampant. You don't have to be a Norman Mailer or Joyce Carol Oates to craft your copy, but you should have a grounding in the basics of writing.
Establishing this foundation is easy. Take a course, or read a
how-to book. Two excellent guides are Strunk & White's Elements of
Style and William Zinsser's On Writing Well. Also, try to find a copy of the book Hot Text by Jonathan and Lisa Price. You can learn just about everything you need to know about writing for the Web from that book.
Aside from writing tightly, there are a few other tricks you can
use to make your documents more readable:
Whenever possible, use bullets and numbered lists to break up long sentences or paragraphs