Writing for web

Class 6: Writing for Web

LANDING PAGES

Who does it better?

A B

• A headline and (optional) sub-headline

• A brief description of the offer/CTA

• At least one supporting image

• Supporting elements such as testimonials or security badges (Optional)

• And most importantly, a form to capture information

Landing Page Components

What makes an effective landing page?

Guidelines for Forms

Landing Page

Bad Landing Page

Why?

Case Study:

Landing Page Roulette

1 2 3 4 5

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Eye Tracking

Authorityand

Relevance

Inbound links

Authority

How to get inbound links• Create high-quality, educational or entertaining content. If people like your content, they will naturally want to link to it.

• Submit your website to online directories (check out this list here). This is an easy way to start.

• Write guest posts for other blogs. This is a win-win for both parties. People will want extra (quality) content from others and in exchange, it’s a great way to build inbound links.

• And don’t borrow, beg, barter, bribe or buy links

Authority

Anchor text

Authority

Urko Dorronsoro

Keywords

Relevance

www.nogginbox.co.uk

• Headline and sub-headline. These areas of content have greater weight to search engines.

• Body content: Include them, but don't use them out of context, make sure they are relevant with the rest of your content.

• Include keywords in the file name of images (e.g. mykeyword.jpg) or use them in the ALT tag.

• Include the keywords in the page URL and keep the URL clean.

Where to include keywords to up relevancy:

Relevance

All of that being said:

write for humans first,

search engines

second. Always

prepare your content

for your audience and

then look to optimize it

for search.

Relevance

Sebastianlund

Meta Tags and Descriptions

Relevance

<meta name="keywords" content=”sports, gear, uniforms, equiptment, running”>

<meta name="Description" content=“Sports equipment and gear for all athletes. Specializing in running, soccer, football and tennis.”>

<title>Sunderland Athletic Store</title

Relevance

http://pitchfork.com/features/grime-dubstep/

http://dubstepfriday.com/

Http://twitter.com/erinsundee

http://supportunitedway.org

http://speakunited.org

STYLE

Questions to ask yourself

• Will people know what I do within seconds?

• Will they understand what page they're on and what it's about?

• Will they know what to do next?• Why should they

buy/subscribe/download from this site instead of from someone else

Web vs. Print

SHORT (but effective)

Guidelines Headlines: 5 words or less

Sentences: Ten words or less

Body text: 40 to 70 words

Bullets and sub headers

Web writing best practice: Short

In ultrices ullamcorper auctor. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nulla vitae ante nec justo lacinia blandit. Vestibulum interdum, dolor eget porttitor gravida, augue lectus feugiat metus, ac rutrum metus diam sit amet lectus. Duis tellus tellus, ornare sit amet suscipit ac, amet White Space: Often, less is more. rhoncus et at felis. Vivamus malesuada mauris a massa convallis placerat. Maecenas tellus elit, dapibus non tristique non, eleifend id mauris. Nulla et sapien erat, in lacinia ligula. In tellus augue, varius pharetra feugiat sit amet, ornare a dolor. Integer pharetra cursus nulla, eu cursus eros cursus id. Proin volutpat, mauris sit amet tempor congue, nulla purus feugiat justo, gravida placerat nibh arcu.

White Space: Often, less is more.

Actionable

Web writing best practice: Make it actionable

Hierarchy of information

What makes content stand out?

• Size• Color• Contrast• Shape• Position• Whitespace

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Web writing best practice: Clear Hierarchy

Headlines, sub headlines and bullets

Headline: The most important

Subheadline: A step down

Bullets:• Look at this good point!• And this one! It’s awesome.• Here’s another. Isn’t this site smart?

Web writing best practice: Clear Hierarchy

Link rules

• Don’t waste time on “click here” • Links should be search engine friendly• Action should be clear

Web writing best practice: Good Links

Scanable

users spend 4.4 seconds for every extra 100 words on a page

Web writing best practice: Scanable

Accessible• According to the U.S. Department of

Education's National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 43% of the U.S. population has low literacy.

• Based on the available information about Internet participation at different education levels, experts estimate that 40% of Web users have low literacy.

Web writing best practice: Make it Accessible

Avoid Gobbledygook

Web writing best practice: Clarity

Shareable

Web writing best practice: Shareable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

USABILITY

Assignment

Create a website homepage, subpage or landing page. Please also submit a list of keywords.

Graded on SEO, strength of writing, grammar and usability.

BLOG! ( 9 blogs total 8 weeks left)

Best and Worst Practices

PPC

What makes something relevant?

It matches what you’re searching for

High search volumeLow competition

High search volumeHigh competition

Low search volumeHigh competition

Low search volumeLow competition

Finding good keywords

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Adwords (Paid Search SEM)

• Launched in 2000• 22.9 Billion in Revenue

Finding good keywords

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Negative keywords

Competition key words

Party Balloons NOT weather ballons

Bank of America vs Citizens Bank

(sparingly)

Google Ads

Headline (25 char)Description 1 (35 char)Description 2 (35 char)Display UrlDestination URL