Learning to write content for an effective website is crucial for any business or organization. Not only does Bly recommend good writing practices, he also describes the best way to design and market your website. This book is a credible source and a helpful resource for anyone pursuing web content development.

I especially thought that the tips in the first half of the book regarding web writing fundamentals and practices were very helpful. And, although the data may have been out of date, the principles still apply. Bly also provided several good websites throughout the book that would help any beginning web designer in their quest for the perfect website.

I've read many books in this segment and I would strongly recommend reading Hot Text: Web Writing that Works or Networds. Robert Bly is a "print guy" that thought it would be interesting to write a book on electronic copy. I would say that the first half of the book is written by supposed experts in on-line marketing. The book is crowded with all sorts of references to other people's work. This leads to a very choppy style of reading in my opinion. The author uses case studies from work that he has already completed but rarely does the content match the electronic world. For a book that is written in 2003, the data is incredibly dated. The author is comfortable with using data from 1996 in a book that talks about the ever changing environment of On-Line marketing. Most of the data regarding internet statistics was incredibly dated. The author talks about the principals of good copy writing but rarely goes into any depth with regards to examples of the principals. I found the writing to be lazy to say the least. Clearly this author is capitalizing on the interest of electronic copy. Take out the experts that know about on-line marketing, you're left with an incredibly weak book. Although there are is a lot of expert reference, rarely do the experts go into any depth with regards to their arguments or points. If this book is the only book that you are exposed to within this segment; you might be left thinking that you read an average book. When you compare the book to other books in the same segment, it simply doesn't compare. Not a good book.

This book is totally out of date for 2003 and 2004!

Every online business needs to understand how it can improve its appearance on the world wide web and Bly shows us how to do just that. This is a great book for small and home businesses who want to take their websites to the next level. And a great book for the beginning copywriter who wants to learn the ropes. My only regret is that it doesn't go as extensively into copywriting techniques as I had hoped.