Writing For The Web (with notes on slides)
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Six things to think about when writing for the web. Written in 2009 so a bit dated now. Intended as discussion points for journalism education classes.
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Writing For The Web (with notes on slides)
- 2. Six things to think about when writing for the web
- 6. You might type in the keywords ‘Dunedin World Cup’ to find out whether Dunedin will be hosting any World Cup games.
- 7. Sure enough, first up in the Google results is an Otago Daily Times story discussing the World Cup rugby matches that Dunedin will host.
- 8. And you can click through to read the story. That’s one way people find news stories – by typing keywords into a search engine.
- 9. Another way to find stories is via the news feeds that feature on, say, your Yahoo Xtra homepage….
- 10. … or Google news page.
- 11. You might come across a news story on Twitter...
- 12. ... or Facebook.
- 13. You can also go directly to a news website’s homepage…
- 14. … and browse for news there.
- 22. On the left is the front page of the New York Times announcing the outcome of the 2009 US presidential election. On the right is the same story on nytimes.com. The web headline includes ‘elected’ and ‘president’ – keywords.
- 24. Horse Sense on Frontiers makes sense here when you have the other headline, picture and caption to help. But on its own doesn’t make sense. Web headlines need to make sense on their own – give people a reason to click.
- 26. In addition, on smaller news websites the first paragraph will be automatically picked out…
- 27. … and used as an ’abstract’ on the homepage. So the first paragraph, or intro, needs to sell the story.
- 28. That’s not always the case, though. On bigger news sites, the intro is sometimes rewritten to fit the homepage.
- 29. Here, nytimes.com has rewritten the story’s intro to fit a particular space on the homepage.
- 31. If you scroll down on the nytimes.com Obama story…
- 32. … you see that they’ve included a video of Obama’s victory speech, another of John McCain’s concession speech, an interactive map of the US giving voting results for each state, links to related stories….
- 33. … and links to blogs and readers’ comments on the story. There’s a lot more there for readers to engage with than just the story itself
- 35. Clarity is created here, for example, by putting the headline, byline etc in clear areas and using white space to prevent clutter. There is a gap between each paragraph to make the text stand out and a sans-serif typeface is used, which some studies have shown to be easier to read online than serif type.
- 37. In this guardian.co.uk story they’ve added links to other science stories, other World news stories, a podcast on a similar topic and stories about dinosaurs.
- 38. In the nytimes.com Obama story they’ve added links to other stories written about the election and the challenges facing the Obama administration.
Notas del editor
- A brief outline of what to think about when writing for the web (a session for journalism students).
- This presentation gives an overview of six things to think about when writing for the web.
- First, make it easy to find. Use keywords in your story, headline and ‘abstract’.
- Keywords are the words people type into a search engine to find what they’re looking for.
- You might type in the keywords ‘Dunedin World Cup’ to find out whether Dunedin will be hosting any World Cup games.
- Sure enough, first up in the Google results is an Otago Daily Times story discussing the World Cup rugby matches that Dunedin will host.
- And you can click through to read the story. That’s one way people find news stories – by typing keywords into a search engine.
- Another way to find stories is via the news feeds that feature on, say, your Yahoo Xtra homepage….
- … or Google news page.
- You might come across a news story on Twitter...
- ... or Facebook.
- You can also go directly to a news website’s homepage…
- … and browse for news there.
- That’s three ways to find news you want. So how do most people find news stories?
- Roughly half of the visitors to any given news story come to that story via a search engine. That’s not an exact figure and it varies from site to site and story to story, but it gives a rough idea of how powerful search can be in driving visitors to your website.
- That’s three ways to find news you want. So how do most people find news stories?
- Because keywords are so fundamental to how search engines work, and so many people find news stories using search, it makes sense to include keywords in your stories.
- On the left is the front page of the New York Times announcing the outcome of the 2009 US presidential election. On the right is the same news story carried on nytimes.com. Notice that the web headline includes the words ‘elected’ and ‘president’ – keywords.
- Which of these headlines is least likely to be clicked on?
- The headline Horse Sense on Frontiers makes sense here when you have the secondary headline, picture and caption to help. But the headline on its own doesn’t make sense. Headlines on the web need to make sense on their own – to give people a reason to click.
- Again, this is about giving people a reason to read further. Explaining what the story is about in the first paragraph helps the reader decide whether they want to read on.
- In addition, on smaller news websites the first paragraph will automatically be picked out…
- … and used as an ’abstract’ on the homepage. So the first paragraph, or intro, needs to sell the story.
- That’s not always the case, though. On bigger news sites the intro is sometimes rewritten to fit the homepage.
- Here, nytimes.com has rewritten the story’s intro to fit a particular space on the homepage.
- This is about giving the reader more to do than just read the text – and hopefully keep them on your website longer.
- If you scroll down on the nytimes.com Obama story…
- … you see that they’ve included a video of Obama’s victory speech, another of John McCain’s concession speech, an interactive map of the US giving voting results for each state, links to related stories….
- … and links to blogs and readers’ comments on the story. There’s a lot more there for readers to engage with than just the story itself.
- Reading online is a different experience to reading on paper. It’s helpful to make pages as clear and easy to read as possible.
- Here, the key elements - headline, byline and date stamp, image/video, text – are all clearly contained within ‘blocks’ of space. There’s plenty of white space used so the page isn’t cluttered. There is a space between each paragraph to make the text easier to read, and a sans-serif typeface is used, which a number of studies have shown to be easier to read online than serif type.
- Finally, including links to material cited in the story, or that gives more information about the story, can add context, lead readers to other parts of your website, and be a useful service to readers.
- In the case of the guardian.co.uk story, they’ve added links to other science stories, other World news stories, a podcast on a similar topic and stories about dinosaurs.
- In the case of the nytimes.com Obama story, they’ve added links to other stories written about the election and the challenges facing the Obama administration.