Writing for the Web ...

As part of the media4 solution, we offer our clients the added option of producing customised editorials for the websites or publications. But it’s the way in which we produce editorials that has an impact on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Please contact us to find out more about this service.

If you are thinking of producing your own web content, here are a few tips to consider on ‘writing for the web’.

Keyword Placement

When writing web content, keyword placement is, well 'key'. The coding structure behind websites is based on a similar principle to everyday editorials, for example:

Title (H1)
...Heading (H2)
.....Paragraph (P)
.....Sub Heading (H3)
.......Paragraph (P)
...Heading (H2)
......Paragraph (P)

In terms of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the keywords that you want to rank well for should be strategically placed throughout the headings and paragraphs. Including your keywords into your titles, headings and sub-headings is essential (providing the keyword also appears in the paragraph).

The reason for this is that search engines analyse headings to assess the contents of the page. A factor which is applied within a search engines algorithm.

When writing for the web, it’s important to remember that search engines are extremely intelligent. Stuffing your content with keywords so that it becomes unreadable will have a negative impact on your optimisation. Your content must always read well

accentuate keywords

To attract search engines to your keywords, you can also apply Bold or Italics. Essentially, this technique is designed to highlight keywords to the web user, thus highlighting the contents importance to search engines.

Be careful not to compromise design for optimisation.

Content Targeted Audience

As with any editorial, it goes without saying the producing content that’s targeted to your audience is important, so...a few pointers:

Be Relevant
Be Consistent
Use Targeted Language
Check your Grammar and Spelling
Be Concise
Be Interesting

The use of images can also add to the visual appeal or support of an editorial. So include relevant images where appropriate, but do not use pictures instead of words. Search engines are clever, but not clever enough to read a graphic.

Final Offering

10 top tips for writing for the web

Flow of information – Understand your core aims/objectives and apply structure to your article. Logically organising the flow of information makes for good reading.
Keyword rich content – Include keyword rich headers, sub headers and content. Be careful to not employ black-hat SEO through keyword stuffing. The content MUST read well.
Call to action – Provide a means of interaction with readers by including influences for response.
Plain and simple – Provide a clear message per page, written in standard English (No Jargon). As you speak, so should you write!
Attention – The use of lists, bullet points, font weights (bold, italic) are excellent methods to draw attention to key aspects of your article.
Capitalisation – avoiding capitalisation of every word makes articles easier to read.
Font families – Stick to a few standard fonts to improve readability.
Approach – Tailor your content to you audience in a professional and approachable tone. Are you selling or informing? Ask someone to proof read your editorial before production.
Unique sales position – Structure your editorial through prioritisation of your key benefits and unique sales position. Grab attention by giving your readers something to think about.
The contact – Deliver your contact methods and organisation details clearly.

The following Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniniques are applied to our web site designs:

Meta Tags
H1-H6 Formatting
No HTML Tables
Site Structure Formatting
Internal linking
XML Site Maps
HTML Site Maps
Crawler Instructions
Image File Size Compression
Image Naming Conventions
Image Descriptions
hCard Address Optimisation
CSS/Javascript Compression
RSS Feed Integration
Keyword Targeting
Content Optimisation
Inclusion in our 'Unique Link Partnership Program' (ULPP)
Search Engine Submission
Analytical Reports
Local Search Optimisation
Directory Submission
Practical advice on how to continue your SEO Campaign

Non-webdesign customers

To extend our service, and for a small fee, we can apply our analysis techniques to any site and provide recommendations on how you can improve your websites ranking.

With the process we will provided a detail analyse report, comprising of competitor analysis and recommendations to improve your sites rankings.