Writting Good Website Content

cyberseed · Dec 4th, 2006, 13:52

A client has asked me for a list of things to bare in mind whilst writing content for a web site. I have never provided such a list as in the past I have given verbal advice. Is there a good source of information that I could use as a source of inspiration. Or does anyone have any more suggestions to add.

This is what I have thought of so far:

1) Use chosen keywords within the first paragraph, preferably the first sentence.

2) Use chosen keywords in page title, page description and in alt text for images.

3) Use chosen keywords as links to other pages.

4) Make text succinct punchy and vibrant and link to further information if needed.

5) Use variables of keywords

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Any more thoughts, yes please

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crewdesign · Dec 4th, 2006, 17:26

I think the most important one is to make it sound individual and make people interested and make them want to read on

moojoo · Dec 5th, 2006, 14:06

Content? Content? Who needs content when you have AJAX, Frame, <blink> tags and flash animations? Content? Bleh I say.!

Nice write up though.

Ryan Fait · Dec 5th, 2006, 18:40

Just don't sacrifice readability.

JacobHaug · Dec 6th, 2006, 14:22

Actually when I was doing website design, I had content writers, I had two published writers that would write content for me, then I would do just like you said take there keywords, and put them everywhere...lol

cyberseed · Dec 6th, 2006, 20:43

Thanks everyone, made me laugh if nothing else. Like your signature Jacob. Did some flash a long time ago, loved it from a design point of view then got lost in maths. Fun but very time consuming. Cheers

JacobHaug · Dec 6th, 2006, 20:44

Yeah...lol

moojoo · Dec 6th, 2006, 21:45

Since when does Math become plural? Math is math or math.. Maths? Maybe I am just weird like people who pronounce the T in often. Damn texans.

cyberseed · Dec 6th, 2006, 22:02

Where I come from no one pronounces the t's in butter (but I am trying to teach my kid better so he has a choose)! Anyway design / art is more fun than maths (Moojoo notice the plural) but then it has always crossed paths, these days more so. Nerds, Geeks, Artists and Designers alike all in the same boat but going where? Could you tell them apart?

daygon · Dec 8th, 2006, 16:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by moojoo

Since when does Math become plural? Math is math or math.. Maths? Maybe I am just weird like people who pronounce the T in often. Damn texans.

I often ponder that same question and im in school. And yes im a texan too so i also pronounce the t in of"t"en. Score for texas! (quoted from a wataburger commercial on the radio)

crewdesign · Dec 8th, 2006, 17:46

math sounds silly, maths is better. - Im English btw lol

moojoo · Dec 8th, 2006, 20:19

Must be a UK thing. Like you guys were speaking english before the US even existed or something heh.

Ryan Fait · Dec 8th, 2006, 23:31

We don't really use math in the plural in the US. It's not hard to avoid doing it.

allsquare · May 22nd, 2007, 12:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by moojoo

Content? Content? Who needs content when you have AJAX, Frame, <blink> tags and flash animations? Content? Bleh I say.!

Nice write up though.

The visitor may be caught for a second by flash animation, but I doubt that animation only is what he comes to your site for. Besides, flash makes your page load for long time, and sometimes every second makes difference. Flash isn't seo-friendly, I mean the info on the flash site won't be indexed by Google.
It's always better to combine html with flash, using the latter only when it can't be avoided.
I do like flash, but it's not very practical.

Scribbles · May 30th, 2007, 13:18

Old though this thread might be the question it starts with is highly relevant so I have decided to add to the list a few other essential things to consider:

Keywords/phrases: These are all well and good in Title, Description, Keywords, Alt tags, etc. but positioning and density are also important. Main keyword/phrase should be the first word in the Title, should be your first body text position, and be repeated at least once in the first and last paragraphs on the page (if possible once in most paragraphs and several times in the 1st and last paragraphs).
Density: Spamming is extremely offence to most search engines, and you don't want to go around upsetting organisations like these, so keep your keyword/phrase density to a reasonable level, 2-5% is considered acceptable.
Volume: Enough copy to interest the search engines, not too much so as to bore the pants of your human audience.
Content: Getting the traffic to your website is one thing, but it is a total waste of time if you don't convert those visitors to customers. To do this your content needs to be concise, focussed and inspirational with a call to action that gets your audience to call, email, come see you, buy online, or whatever it was that you created the website to do as your online marketing medium.

This is by no means exhaustive, but adds to the basics already listed.

Richard
Scribbles Writing Services
www.scribbles-writing-services.co.uk

cosmicbdog · May 31st, 2007, 09:17

If I were you I would forget all forced manipulations to try and improve website content / search engine friendliness. Search engine laws change all the time and I'm pretty sure give it a few years it will be impossible to strategise your way to the top.

Someone before mentioned writing something that genuinely keeps people interested. That in my opinion is the only way you can test and measure your own production. Otherwise you're just giving your marketing power away to what some other guy out there thinks is the way to do all this stuff when he/they wrote his/their search engine algorithm.

I say invent your own. Create a new marketplace. Attract people to you instead of trying to fit in with what they have setup for you.

Otherwise, just ignore what I said. Either way, I probably won't no and can't take offense!

My experience has been that when you are passionate about your topic, you also associate with other websites on the same topic. Its my understanding that creating links to these sites within your own copy is the most powerful way of generating a sustainable way for search engines to work out what websites are relevant to what topics.

MikeHopley · Jun 3rd, 2007, 22:05

First, you have to decide what you are going to write about. Think about your site's visitors/potential visitors. Why do they come here? What do they want?

The basics of writing are important. Good writing is not easy, whatever the medium. Don't make spelling or punctuation errors, and don't violate grammatical conventions without a good reason. Sloppy writing is harder to understand and leaves a bad impression. Crafting sentences is a skill.

Reading on screens is slower and less comfortable than reading print. Also, web users tend to scan quickly, rather than read in detail. For both these reasons, it makes sense to keep your writing brief.

That doesn't mean you should omit all detail, but you should prune your writing even more for the web than you would for print. Stay tightly focused on your subject. For related topics, consider linking to a separate page/article instead.

Use simpler language rather than fancier language, and keep sentences and paragraphs relatively short: break up your long paragraphs more than you would for print. Use lots of headings wherever logically appropriate -- these help your readers skip to the sections they care about.

Use bold text and other emphasising methods, such as bullet points, to draw attention to key points. Again, this helps your readers to scan the content quickly.

Essentially, your goal is to help your users find the information they want, as quickly and accurately as possible.

If your site is an entertainment site, however, much of this does not apply. If people come to read your beautiful poetry, then give them it pure; don't murder it with headings and bulleted lists.

VanessaJW · Jun 4th, 2007, 06:05

I want to second what Mike said about spelling/punctuation/grammatical errors. You could have the most stunning site design with carefully researched and worded content, but a couple of spelling mistakes and a few misplaced apostrophes and the site loses all credibility in an instant (that is of course assuming the site visitor knows enough to be aware that there are errors there! Just don't get me started on the declining standards of English...).

If you're not good with spelling/punctuation/grammar, then get someone else to proof your work (and if you don't know whether you are good at it or not, or you don't care about this issue, then chances are you're not. No offence to anyone). In fact, always get someone else to proof your work, it's always more difficult to spot your own errors.