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
• 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
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