academic writer: web writing: low trust environment

Why is it important to gain credibility?
Writing on the web is working in a low trust environment. If you have never met someone it is difficult to trust them. Web readers might ask: Are you qualified? Why are you writing this? Are you trying to get my money? Why should I waste time reading your work? Do you know what you are talking about anyway? Studies suggest that we are becoming less tolerant readers. Attention spans are shortening. We are becoming 'experienced' web readers, ever quicker to dismiss a site as uninteresting or irrelevant to our needs. So, traditional academic papers need to be adapted for the web to make them:
easy to read and to
establish the writer's credibility.