Writing for online

Charlotte Reid | creid@lincoln.ac.uk

Homepages

• Welcome page for websites• Contains main points of website/brand• Should encourage people to stay on the site

Homepages

• Not as popular as used to be – readers are coming in the side door

• Every page now acts like a homepage• Homepage still important to attract readers

and keep them interested

http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/08/coming-in-the-side-door-the-value-of-homepages-is-shifting-from-traffic-driver-to-brand/

Homepages

• Important for advertisers – Mullet strategy• “Business up front, party in the back”

http://www.businessinsider.com/jonah-perettis-awesome-viral-media-presentation-explained-2010-8?op=1

What makes a good website?

• Clear to read and use• Most important part of website – make it big

and obvious• What do readers want?• How will you show that to them?• Sharing content• Technical – website need to cope with traffic

for big stories

Easy to read

• Hard to keep people’s attention online• Some visitors will read articles properly • Others scan to what they want to read

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2012/mar/19/attention-span-internet-consumer

Easy to read

• Keep people interested• Good writing – short and

punchy• Subheadings, pictures,

videos, audio• Audience – Buzzfeed use

images and gifs• Best way to cover story

Easy to read - experimentation

• New York Times – Snowfall

Easy to read - experimentation

• http://martinbelam.com/2013/hacks_hackers_usvsth3m/

Mobile websites

• One in five UK digital news readers access news exclusively on mobiles

• Mobile websites are optimised to look good on smaller screens

• Mobile apps – tend to be downloaded if you are already loyal to that site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/bbc-sport-handheld.html

Mobile websites

Mobile website Smartphone app

SEO

• Help people find your website– Tagging– Strong headlines– Useful links– Good content– Updated regularly

Registration

• Needed for comments, email newsletters and paywalls

• Consider how you will protect this information• Privacy issues and legal issues• Learn information from visitors to your site• Cookies – files on the user side which is

helpful for advertisement

Interactivity

• Reader comments• Voter polls• Social media

Helps get readers talking on your site and allows them to contribute to your coverage

Interactivity

Interactivity

Polls•Invite reader to respond to stories•Wordpress plugins, Google forms, Facebook polls•Think about question – make sure not taken advantage of•Results can be written into a new story

Interactivity

Interactivity

Comments•Invite readers to have their say•Get reaction/more information•Emotive subject – are comments worth it?

• Upset people• Legal complications

Interactivity

Interactivity

Social media•Use to promote stories•Use to get reaction and comments

http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/01/if-a-tweet-worked-once-send-it-again-and-other-lessons-from-the-new-york-times-social-media-desk/

Interactivity

Social media•Useful to source stories•Contacts•Fact check and accuracy•Have permission

Verification handbook http://verificationhandbook.com/

News is consumed differently

• Need to be able to write your story in different ways– Short article and longer articles– Tweet/Facebook– Audio and video

• Be able to make them all strong and make people want to read

News is consumed differently

Also competing with•Facebook and social media•Blogs•Hyperlocal websites•Radio stations•Local TVAll are very different but will have an online profile