FYI: SEO

Use keywords to optimise SEO when writing online

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Writing for online

Ways to make your writing clearer and more accessible

• • • Write so people can scan
    • Keep your writing simple
    • Use “chunking” to group pieces of content – it helps to give readers relief from intimidating walls of text
    • Keep sentences short
    • Keep paragraphs short – a one-sentence paragraph is ok! Two sentences are fine too
    • Break up paragraphs with white space
    • Use subheadings to lead your reader through your story (also makes the story more scannable)
    • Think visually: use photos, videos, infographics, and maps to break up text
    • Use bullet points to summarise information

Write in 3D

Think about your stories not as two-dimensional pages, but as spaces your readers can move around, dive into, and navigate in the ways they choose.

• • • Use links to related articles (on your site, or someone else’s)
    • Use links to original sources (documents, data, people you quote in your story)
    • Use links to credit visual material
    • Embed your links in key-word phrases – don’t use the full URL

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

The most popular search engine by a long way is Google, though there are others. Search engines look for a few key things when they’re ranking a page:

• • • the page HTML header
    • the headline
    • body text
    • keyword tags

TIP: When you’re writing your story, think about the keywords you might use if you were looking for the story

Good things to read for more online writing tips:

• • • BASIC Principles: B is for Brevity (on the really good Online Journalism Blog)
    • Writing Style for Print vs Web

Try this:

1. Find an example of a good online article that uses all the techniques for good online writing and SEO
2. Rewrite and post on your WordPress site one of your own stories or pieces of content using the techniques above and optimise it for reading and SEO.