Web writing for the skimmer

Get right to the point and make your web writing more effective.

Almost nobody reads from left to right, top to bottom any more. Most of us skim. We are trying to get as much information as we can for as little effort as we can get away with.

Here is an article I didn't read: The Social Media Revolution: Exploring the Impact on Journalism and News Media Organizations Apologies to its author, but I didn't have time and I couldn't work out what it was really saying. This is why:

When people skim they give more weight to the information in certain places:
 o  The first couple of words of the headline
 o The first five words of an obvious picture caption
 o The first few words of any page furniture (stand-firsts, pull-quotes, cross heads, box heads)
 o The first five or six words of the intro
 o The first few words of each paragraph

So when I saw the article above what my brain actually took in was

Social . Media . Journalism . News

... and I thought it might be interesting , so I skim read on. But there was no picture caption or other page furniture. What do the cross heads tell me?

Introduction . Literature Review

... not much.

Now I read the first five words of each paragraph. What do I learn?

Twitter. Facebook. Digg. MySpace. LinkedIn.  (Good - interested again)
Many traditional and non-traditional media... (going off the idea)
The main purpose of this... (starting to get bored)
The report will respond to...(eyelids beginning to droop)
Media industry publications and critics... (zzzzzzzz)
Understanding where traditional news organizations...

Before being able to define...
Others have evaluated the news...

It is about Twitter and it is a report. I know nothing else about this piece because I didn't read any more. It is unfair on the poor author but I really am that ruthless... and so is everyone else.

Jakob Nielsen's research shows that we skim a web page in a few seconds and we use the words we find in the tops and lefts of the text to decide whether to read on.

For a writer, the answer is to get straight to the point. The words at the beginning should carry the greatest meaning. Don't use headings like Introduction. Say instead, for example, Audiences Expect to Contribute. Now the skim reader (everyone) gets more value from your writing.

Look at the start of each paragraph. Do we learn anything about what is in the paragraph. If not, you are not getting to the point quickly enough.

PS: for an example of someone doing it better see A Better Mattress in the Economist although I would have a caption on the picture.

Tops and lefts for SEO

Search engines give particular weight to words that appear in the top and left of a web page. You can use fact in two ways:

1. Force the most significant words into those positions: the first two words that appear in the title bar and in your main heading are most important.
2. You can see which words you have naturally placed in those key positions and work out how much value they give to any visitor.

In this example, the words that appear in the key positions don't really help.

Pushing key words into the key positions will improve SEO

More on Twitter editing

Using all 140 characters on Twitter does not kill the re-Tweet.

Fewer than 120 characters should be your target for a Tweet, a couple of commenters said on my post about editing for Twitter. Maybe 110 if you want to include hashtags.

This allows people who want to re-Tweet a few characters to credit you as the source and if a sufficient number of people do that, then you go viral and your life improves in unfathomable ways.

Of course, someone might re-Tweet the re-Tweet, so let's say 100 chars, and if one of the re-Tweeters has a long name then maybe 90 is all we should allow.

I'm stubbornly sticking to 140 characters against all advice, and here's why. I find the Tweets containing the most information are also the most likely to be re-Tweeted (interested to know if other people have the same experience). I note that most information is not necessarily the same as the greatest number of characters.

And, the good news is that writing 140 character Tweets does not seem to stop me going viral (in a modest way, at least). Here is an example:

Huffington Post wrote:
Enter the news literacy movement. Situated in the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University and the DC-based News Literacy Project, these entities, according to Stony Brook Dean Howard Schneider, seek to nurture "a generation of news consumers who would learn how to distinguish for themselves between news and propaganda, verification and mere assertion, evidence and inference, bias and fairness, and between media bias and audience bias--consumers, who could differentiate between raw, unmediated information coursing through the Internet and independent, verified journalism."


On Twitter I wrote exactly 140 characters:
News literacy movement seeks to nurture news consumers who can distinguish between verification and mere assertion. HuffPo http://tr.im/uFgs

It was picked up by @EvidenceMatters who wrote (138 chars):
rt @AdeMacLeod: News literacy movement nurtures news consumers who differentiate verification and mere assertion. HuffPo http://tr.im/uFgs

This was picked up by @murzee who wrote (137 chars):
RT @EvidenceMatters: rt @AdeMacLeod: News literacy : consumers to differentiate verification and mere assertion. HuffPo http://tr.im/uFgs


One could argue about the different meanings of the three Tweets (@EvidenceMatters gets my vote) but that's not the point. The point is that 140 characters did not kill the re-Tweet.

Subbing for Twitter's 140 chars

The secret of a good Tweet is to cram as much information as will fit in your 140 character allowance.

This requires good old-fashioned sub-editing skills and some editorial judgement. In the example below, I was determined to keep the amusing quote which meant I had to be ruthless. You decide: did I go too far? (This is the actual process I went through: it may not be the most efficient way of getting there.)

253 chars (cut and paste original)
Swedish newspapers threaten to boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "The next step would be to tell critics they can't write anything critical." Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/swedish-newspapers-threat_n_229582.html

190 chars (trim link URL)
Swedish newspapers threaten to boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "The next step would be to tell critics they can't write anything critical." Huffington Post http://tr.im/rN8T

172 chars (sub down text)
Swedish papers threaten to boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "Next they will be telling critics they can't write anything critical." HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

160 chars (lose "threaten to" - changes meaning but within acceptable limits?)
Swedish papers boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "Next they will be telling critics they can't write anything critical." HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

145 chars (close)
Swedish papers boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "Next they'll say critics can't write anything critical" HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

138 chars (final)
Swedish papers boycott Britney concert over photo rules. "Next they'll say critics can't write anything critical" HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

Web news: 10 things on the BBC

Analysing a typical BBC News story reveals some important lessons for web writers. Many of us are so familiar with the BBC format that we don't realise how clever it is.

1. Limiting heads to 33 characters means they work for readers, for search engines, for news feeds. Everyone working online should do this, but it's hard work.
2. A single sentence intro in bold works on its own in a feed but also leads into the main story.
3. A pic or video adds visual interest. Often these show people which helps to humanise the story. Pics and videos carry a caption: important in enticing a visual audience to start reading.
4. An early quote, often by paragraph 4, makes the writing livelier but also adds credibility and authority to the story. The first quote usually justifies the head and the intro.
5. A balancing quote offering the opposing view or an alternative insight is also important in adding credibility to the story. Giving voice to several views may broaden their audience too.
6. Covering the story in as many different ways as possible also broadens the audience. Video may not be ideal for a reader who is in a hurry, but it will make the story real for those who browse.
7. Expert analysis helps readers understand the significance of the story. The personality of the analyst adds a human touch. It also adds a link to the blog section of the site.
8. More visual interest as readers scroll down. A second pic also has a catchy caption.
   
9. Encouraging readers to respond to the story helps them to become involved. News becomes more like a conversation than a broadcast.
10. Giving that itching mouse finger lots of things to click keeps readers within the site and adds value to the story.

The original story can be seen on the BBC news site.

Firefox dominates

Firefox is the dominant browser amongst WriteThinking visitors and IE7 has finally overtaken IE6, the latest statistics show.

SEO vs brand identity

The Sun's headlines are so important to its brand that they shouldn't be compromised for search engine optimisation, Peter Moore argues.

He quotes an example from today's paper the head to a story on the breakup of Jordan and Peter Andre:

Sex with Jordan? That’s out of the equestrian

Twitter: pros and cons

The story so far . . .

For Twitter:
Headlines and dedlines
ReadWriteWeb
Online Journalism Blog


Against Twitter (I think):
Paul Dailing at Huffington Post
Brainz

Headlines: BBC praised by expert

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has nominated the BBC news website's headlines as the best in the world. He points out that the BBC's heads are:

• Short (typically 5 or 6 words)
• Information rich
• Have key words first
• Work without context (in the adjacent XML feed, for example - compare with the NY Times headlines further down)
• Don't promise more than they can deliver

The Guardian comments that the BBC's style is in contrast with some newspapers who stick to a traditional headline style.

Although Nielsen is evaluating human reponse to the BBC's headlines, they also effective for search engine optimisation.

SEO for your audience

Aiming a precise readership is the secret of a good website. It is tempting to broaden your message with a view to driving traffic to your site. In fact, the opposite approach works better.

The US Department of Health and Human Services Usability Guidelines rank the following most important:

• Provide useful content
• Establish user requirements
• Understand and meet user expections

Online news only 3.5%

Less than 4% of newspaper reading in the US happens online according the the Nieman Journalism Lab.

The Lab's Martin Langeveld has had to make some assumptions about reading habits to arrive at his conclusions but the result will surprise many who believe that internet has made bigger inroads.

A similar calculation for the The Guardian in the UK would suggest that online represents 20% of reading.

My Sums
Monthly impressions for guardian.co.uk: 228,136,292 (228m)
Daily print readership (3.61 multiplier on circulation): 1,264,000 = 910,080,000 (910m) monthly page impressions (if you assume each reader looks at the equivalent of 24 pages [1.264m x 24pages x 30 days]).
Total web and print = 910m + 228m = 1138m
Web % = 228m/1138m x 100% = 20.04%

See also Inksniffer's take on web metrics

Headlines: Deep Throat dies

Deep Throat has died at the age of 95.

Former FBI official Mark Felt admitted in 2005 that he was the anonymous source used by Bob Woodward during his investigation of the Watergate scandal which brought down President Nixon.

Headline writers have come to various conclusions about how much detail to include at the top of this story.

Watergate scandal informant dies
BBC News

Watergate's Deep Throat, Mark Felt, dies
Guardian

W. Mark Felt, Watergate Deep Throat, Dies at 95
New York Times

For search engine optimisation you probably want Deep Throat to be prominent but it seems a disrespectful way to refer to someone who has just died. The BBC uses only the keyword Watergate.

Most other news sources use Deep Throat, but also include his name, Mark Felt, producing a more elegant, if longer, head. The name may also be a term some people search on.

The NY Times, Washington Post, Daily Telegraph and others include his age. This is important in defining the scale of the news story. For most readers, there is a big difference between someone dying at 25 and at 95. However, this produces a longer headline: NY Times is 8 words compared with the BBC's 4.

Search engines also care about which word comes first. Here is the first word chosen by some news sources:

Watergate
BBC News
Guardian
Telegraph
Times

Deep
Washington Post

W Mark
New York Times

Search engine optimisation means working out the significant words in a story and pushing those words towards the beginning of the story. The first word in the headline is particularly important. In this story the following words are significant:
Watergate
Deep Throat
Mark Felt
dies
95
Nixon
FBI
scandal
source
Woodward

The most significant should appear in head. The others should appear early in the story.

Headline: the pun is dead

The witty, punning headline is finished when it comes to the internet. The greatest headlines of the web era will be the most functional ones and they’re unlikely to be remembered by anybody.

So writes Shane Richmond, communities editor of Telegraph.co.uk in an article on SEO in the British Review of Journalism.

For the web, headlines must be direct, short and obvious. That will ensure they are also search engine friendly and suitable for an RSS feed. Here is how you write a web headline:

1. Condense your story into a single 20-word sentence (if you haven't already done so).
2. Decide which 3 of those words carry the most meaning.
3. Check that the three words are the terms people are likely to search on, looking for your story. If not, find search-friendly synonyms.
4. Put the most significant word first.
5. If necessary, add some other words to create your headline.

For example:

Royal Mail is "bullying" postal workers into walking faster on their rounds in an effort to save money, union officials claimed today.
Key words might be

• faster
• postal
• bullying

Postal is an unlikely search term. Post or postmen are better. Postmen is probably also the most significant word in the story. So the headline might read:

Postmen bullied to walk faster

The original story came from The Guardian whose headline was

Postal workers 'told to walk faster'

Postal workers is a term that people are unlikely to search on but I suppose it removes gender bias. Told carries less meaning than bullied.

Writing to be found

Google-friendly writing techniques ensure that as many people will see your stuff as possible (it helps for search engine optimisation [SEO]):

• Update your site as frequently as possible
• Think of the words that people will search on if they want to find your page
• Use those words
• Do not use elegant variation unless synonyms are also words people will search for
• Make sure key words are in prominent positions
• Scoops, opinion and major facts will encourage linking
• Independence, balance and authority also help
• Be generous to sources and they will be generous to you
• Include as much detail as you can at the deepest levels of your site

Google Trends is a useful way to see what people are actually searching for.
Webconfs has a useful keyword density checker.

Keep on blogging

Sometimes it's hard to update frequently and keep a blog vibrant. Remember you are not limited to a particular type of information. Think about using a mix of content types:

News
News analysis
Digest of relevant web finds
Links to relevant sites
Opinion
A review of archive material
Anniversaries or follow-up stories
Campaigns

Set up Google Alerts on relevant subjects and you get an email to remind you to blog.

Search engine optimisation in five steps

A summary of some previous posts, a five step guide to optimising for Google.

• Make your site as good as it can be
• Work out who your readers are and make it as interesting as possible for them
• Work out the language your readers are using and put their words in the right places
• Update regularly
• Encourage people to link to your site

Encouraging inbound links

Getting people to link to your site is a major element determining your position on a search engine results page. Here are my tips for persuading people to link to you:

• Make a good website in the first place
• Put the right words in the right places
• Update frequently
• Make what you have to say as interesting as possible
• Create a buzz or a focus
• Put stuff up that cannot be found anywhere else
• Make it detailed and specific
• Make it fun
• Make it free
• Make it controversial
• Be campaigning
• Put stuff up that other people cannot easily create for themselves

Make it interesting

• Make it about people
• Make it about people your reader can identify with, or people like your reader
• Make it a story with a past and future as well as a present
• Make it so your reader benefits from reading it
• Make it new
• Use hard facts (345m long) rather than soft facts (big)
• Pick out the surprising, the quirky, the unusual
• Make it visual (yes, use pictures, but also make the writing conjure up pictures in peoples heads)
• Evoke and emotional response

Reasons to update regularly part I

If you monitor what people are searching on it tends to come in surges driven by outside events. The day a celeb finds themselves sentenced to two years in jail is also a day that sees a lot of searching on their name.

There is an exponential decay. If you write about something relevant to your audience a week aften it has happened you will get a lesser response than if you write about it the same day.



BUT... search engines don't search the internet (shock news) they search a copy of it on their own servers. The frequency with which they update their cache for each web page depends on how often it changes. If you typically only update your site once a month, then responding to a new external event may be frustrating because you may have to wait severals days before the search engines re-cache your page.

So the more frequently you update the more search hits you will get.

Things to consider for regular updates:

• News
• Blogs
• News or blog digests
• Opinion on what is in the news
• Flagging new content elsewhere on the web

Right words in the right places

A big part of search engine optimisation (SEO) is making sure you use words people are likely to search for:

• Obvious and in plain language (dog rather than canine)
• Short (TV rather then television)
• Come up in natural conversation
• Don't jar if you use them repeatedly when talking about the subject
• Broad, all-encompassing terms
• Narrow, specific terms
• I realise the last two seem contradictory, but actually people search on both so you need to consider both
• Generic and product specific

The place where these words appear within your site determines their significance to a search engine. In order of importance:

1. URL (www.searchterm.com does better than www.somethingelse.com/searchterm)
2. Title bar (no-one searches on welcome or homepage)
3. Heads (particularly those coded with the h1 tag
4. Navigation (search engines use this to work out the context of your site)
5. The tops and lefts (of the whole page, each paragraph, even the URL)
6. Words associated with pictures (alt tags and words near picture such as captions)

Keyword stuffing is a technique where you work out what search terms you want your site to get a good ranking for and then making sure they appear in those important positions.

I think it is better to do it the other way around. Work out the best language to talk to your audience and that should produce a more natural site which also gets a high ranking. But you may also want to look at the key positions and check you are making the most of your site.

A good website

Before you create a website you should ask yourself what the goods one do. This is my list:

• You learn a lot quickly
• They are easy to use
• Offering something you cannot get elsewhere (taking advantage of the technology)
• Clear and obvious
• Succinct and immediate
• Well organised
• Visually appealling
• About the user (rather than about the site owner)

Indicators of a bad site include:

• Cluttered
• Confusing
• Long-winded
• Full of jargon
• Using lots of proper nouns