Chris Snider's presentation about writing for the web.

1. WRITING
FOR THE WEB
by Chris Snider

2. PRINT JOURNALISM
≠
ONLINE JOURNALISM

3. The way that people use the
internet and, in particular,
search engines to find and
consume content is very different
to the way that they find it in
print publications.

4. How people read online
They don’t read every word
They scan (quickly), looking for information they want
If they don’t find it fast, they click on something else
They jump from site to site (now that we have faster
internet connections)
They avoid ads (and anything that looks like an ad)
They read across the top, then down, then across, then
down, like an F...
They don’t scroll

5. The overwhelming odds are that people
will not read your entire post – or even close to it.
Make sure they will get something valuable,
even if they only read one or two paragraphs.

6. HOW DO WE KNOW?

8. Eyetrack research:

9. Newspaper home pages

10. Battle of the sexes:

11. What gets read online
Short paragraphs
Bulleted lists
Occasional use of bold to prevent skimming
Short sentence fragments
Explanatory subheads
No pun headlines

12. Which of these is easier to read?

14. The web is very literal.
No metaphors.
No puns.
Use plain english.

15. Print headlines
don’t work online

17. Put your most important information at the top.
Avoid feature lead-ins.

18. Use links.
Reader expect you to help them find more valuable info.
Links also offer good will (more on that later).

19. Don’t create things that look like ads.
People try to avoid ads online.

21. Blame the monkey for ruining online advertising

22. Take advantage of online’s capabilities:
A writer/publisher has many more
tools available online than in print.
So mix things up.

23. Alternative forms of stories
List
Photo – or photo gallery
Video
Thought post (ask a question and get responses)
Interview
Live chat
Live video
Slideshow

24. Chris Brogan’s most-linked-to posts

25. Set up a series of posts (even if you don’t call it a series).
Use new posts in the series to link to
older posts in the series.
This helps reinforce the original content.
It also gets your RSS readers and e-mail subscribers
to actually come to your site.

27. Comment back to people who leave comments.
This builds community and keeps people coming back.

28. Know your metrics.
What stories are popular?
What isn’t popular?
When do your readers come to your site?
How do they get to your site (twitter,
google, etc.)?

30. end