Mediabharti.com- Affiliate Programme- Web Writers Manual

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WEB WRITER'S MANUAL

Writing for a website is totally different from another media. These are some guidelines to a perfect write up for online media.

1. Write concise- 50% less than what you would write for print. Readability online decreases by 25%. Another 25% as reading online is not pleasant.

2. Write simple- Avoid complex, technical words and long sentences. Write for punch and avoid promotional language (e.g. major websites, world-famous event, number one newspaper etc.). It is easy to lose credibility online as anybody can make a website, so concentrate more on facts.

3. Write for scan ability- Users are impatient online and they don't read text word by word. Instead, they prefer to scan. To facilitate scanning...

Do not make this Career in Aviation- Career- Www.mediabharti.com; just the last section and name of parent site will do.

* You could also add your site/section’s tag line after page title on respective homepages. Tag lines should describe the main purpose of your site/section.

8. Keywords- Keywords are used by search engines to pick your page from many others.

a. Highlight keywords- Users should know by a quick scan if the page relates to their need or search query.

b. Use subheads- Chunk large articles into small paragraphs by using subheads. Subheads have to be meaningful of the content they hold. This helps user to instantly know what the paragraph is about and choose to read it or not.

c. Use bulleted/numbered list- Use lists whenever possible.

4. Hyperlink information- Use the Net as a linking medium. This does not mean a single, linear flow of information with Continued on page 2'.

a. Split information into coherent chunks that each focus on a certain topic. The guiding principle should be to allow readers to select those topics they care about and only download those pages.

b. Long and detailed background information can be relegated to secondary pages; similarly, information of interest to a minority of readers can be made available through a link without penalizing those readers who don't want it. Remember, generic information of common interest first, specific information as hyperlinks.

5. Use inverted pyramid style of writing- Put important paragraphs at start of story and important information at start of each paragraph. Users should be able to tell in minimum read what a story is about. You can also provide a summary or gist of article at top to help users decide whether story is of their interest or not.

6. Each paragraph should contain one main idea- Use a second paragraph for second idea. Users tend to skip any second point as they scan over a paragraph.

7. Page Titles- A title tag is an HTML code snippet that creates the words that appear in the top bar of Web browser, for example, in Explorer, 'Mediabharti.com- Complete News E-zine'-Microsoft Internet Explorer'.

Guidelines for page titles-

* Page titles have to be descriptive of content they hold (like news headlines) as they should make sense when viewed completely out of context (through Bookmarks, History or search listings).

* Eliminate articles like ‘The’, ‘A’, and ‘An’ from beginning of title as you would do in a news headline. A good page title should be short. Around 40 characters, maximum 60 characters, as they are often truncated in navigation menus and by search engines.

* More important, it should match the search queries people will be using to find your sites or articles.

* Preferably, make the first word of title the most important descriptor of page- Users often scan down long lists of titles to choose pages. Do not begin a title with a generic term ("Welcome to") or an article ("The").

* Give different titles to different pages.

* Titles must be written in mixed case.

* In rare cases, a single keyword might be emphasized by use of Upper case.

* All sections and subsections within a site should also have their names as page titles. For example: "Mediabharti.com- Career- Career in Aviation".

* These should match the words that someone would enter in a search to find your site. Include the following- your company name, products, your product category, synonyms (even ones not included in body text), the plural of those words, and possible misspellings.

* Use a controlled vocabulary. Do not add a keyword if the page is only peripherally related to the term. Only use keywords that describe main topic of a page.

* Repeat the most important keyword twice. It seems to work with some search engines. Avoid repeating more than that. It will cause some of them to ignore the whole page.

9. Description tags- Description provides a quick synopsis of information on site or sub-site when a link is viewed on a search listing. A good description will make your site attract a lot more clicks.

Guidelines for descriptions-

*Descriptions should tell users what the site is about and allow them to judge whether it is of relevance to their current search query.

* To write a description tag, ask yourself what site is all about. Make your description simple and to the point. Lure them with facts. Do not fill descriptions with hyperbole or promotional language.

* It has to be 150 characters or less. Remember to put your most important information first.

* Don't cram it with keywords. It’s just a summary.

* Descriptions must make sense when read completely out of context of site (though you can assume that they will be seen together with the page title).

10. Headlines- Online headlines should be descriptive of content they hold, like a news headline. Users should immediately know what the story is about when they see a headline as a link along with other similar links.

11. Section/subsection names- Names of sections and subsections have to descriptive of content they hold (like news sections and their respective subsections). The idea is not to make the user guess what the section/subsection is about. One can also make the name of a section/subsection more descriptive by adding link titles.

12. Link titles- Link titles provide users with a preview of where each link will take them, before they have clicked on it. Goal of link titles is to help users predict what will happen if they follow a link.

Guidelines for link titles-

* Appropriate information to include in a link title can be-

a. Name of site the link will lead to (if different from current site)

b. Name of the sub-site the link will lead to (if staying within the current site but moving to a different part of site) added details about the kind of information to be found on destination page and how it relates to anchor text and to context of current page.

* Link titles should be less than 80 characters, and only rarely go above 60 characters. Shorter link titles are better.

Do not add link titles to all links: if it is obvious from the link anchor and its surrounding context where link will lead, then a line title will reduce usability by being one more thing users have to look at. A link title may be superfluous if it simply repeats same text as is already shown in anchor. Also, link titles will add approximately 0.1 seconds to download time for a typical Web page over a modem connection. So use them sparsely.

Finally, note that link titles do not eliminate the need to make the link anchor and its surrounding text understandable without seeing link title. Users should not have to point to a link to understand what it means: link title should be reserved for supplementary information. Also, link titles do not work in old browsers. Another reason not to solely rely on them to convey the meaning of link anchor.