(originally posted as a guest blog at www.thekaizenwriter.com)
Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels
I bet you have been recognized for your insightful impact or clever wordsmithing. Your ability to weave words into imagery is so keen it transports your audience. Your writing career is on an upswing and your next step is to build your brand on the world wide web and reach even further.
But your web designer informs you that your stories are just not holding the popularity of your printed work. Why? Same words. Same fans. Same subjects. But something isn’t the same.
Perhaps success is in the formatting. And that is something easy for you to adopt.
To Master Writing On The Web: Think About People
So how exactly do you master web-writing? First, to be an incredible writer of web content you need to go on a thought experiment with me. Remember back to a time when deadlines weighed on you heavily. Your eyes burning with dryness from too many hours without a break. Your mind drifting towards an insatiable urge for an evening of Netflix. Yes, that feeling.
When you write for the internet, it becomes incredibly important to remember who you are writing for and somewhat more important, how they are feeling at the moment they are reading.
What you may not realize is reading the internet is often an activity between life’s many experiences. Readers don’t really read at all. They scan information to access the key points. I bet before you began reading this article you scanned down the headlines to confirm if it was worth your time. While offline reading is an experience, in many cases an exquisite pleasure. Interweb reading is about purpose. So knowing this, you can make it easier to absorb. Here’s how:
Break It Up! Importance Is Measured By Space
Online reading strains the eyes. Break up paragraphs to no more than a few sentences and don’t be afraid to leave lots of space between lines. Many popular web writing applications are designed to add extra space between paragraphs and between characters. But not always. If you have access and notice something wrong ask a developer to edit the default code.
Because your reader is likely on a mobile device it’s not in your best interest to build in columns or micro-manage formatting. They are not seeing your words the way you think they are.
Surround important statements with space. Quote or call-out formatting brings attention to your best messaging, choose something that drives your topic forward. As a rule, If it’s important, give it space. – Click to Tweet
As a bonus, you can use applications like click to tweet or share this to help readers share.
Search Engines Love Topic Authority | The rise of keyword groups has begun
Once upon a time, there was real value in getting search engine doctors to inject keywords into the back end of your articles. These tactics helped your work find their way to the top of search relevance.
Then the builders of our common browsers (like Chrome, Safari or Edge) found ways to out these cons. Now getting your article read relies heavily on how valuable it is for the reader and how much authority it has. But what does this mean to you?
Aim for global insight with keyword clusters. If your work answers the common questions the majority of readers are asking the robots that analyze your page for search relevance will likely place you in front of other works. SEO in 2019 is a bit complicated, but not too complicated. Here is an example:
If my headline says: “Best Card Games to Play Alone” and your 1st sentence says: “ Card games are great ways to pass the time” = Card Games is the keyword.
If the sentences, subheadings and page content contain: Solitaire, Alone not lonely, one-person version alternatives of favourite games, playing cards” then you are using context to the headline. = These are Keyword Clusters
Powerful Google bots analyze 100s of 1000s pages and pick up the word patterns. When your article includes these patterns. Your article has more authority.
Of course, there is more. It’s what the people do with this information that really holds the power. People who link to your page, share it or take a deep read to verify Google bots that their best guess is correct.
Clues that your page needs a little investigation are:
- High Bounce rates= when many readers spend only a few seconds on your page before leaving.
- Reading sub-headlines have no relevance to the headline.
- Searching for your article by its headline is not found on any search page.
This said, your content should be relevant to your chosen audience. SEO is not the entire story. Some topics are simply too competitive to rank without sacrificing your stories integrity, so if you are getting lots of comments, and shares, you are doing just fine. If not you may be able to market your work in different ways.
Long-form Or Short: But Not Too Short, I Hope
The Great Debate has always been on how long an article should be. You may have heard that attention spans are getting smaller and smaller. It leads logically that your work should be broken up into a series of many short, easy to read articles over one that is long and comprehensive. But popular website articles are often, like a novel, rich with pages and pages of insight.
We come back to purpose. I still believe that you need to put yourself in the place of your reader. A recent study looked at audience attention spans and found that they are not getting shorter but instead people are choosey. If an article is relevant, a reader will spend the time.
I use this rule of thumb:
- If the intent is to build community and I know my audience is dedicated to the subject because it is connected to a hobby, advocating for common belief or has been part of a game campaign. I might invest in a longer piece.
- If my audience is looking for information and busy or likely scanning for context. I add formatting and structure to help them return to their place when life takes them away.
- If I am trying to attract people that do not know me or we are just getting to know each other. I keep it short 300- 500 words, relevant, and lead them to read more with links.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
Say It With Visuals, Good Visuals
Ok, back to writing for internet-reading humans. This is what you are really good at. Your words are likely why you choose to blog or article. Words are your superpower but words are not the only way to convey a thought quickly. Visuals are.
The brain processes an image 65 000 times faster than words.
It makes sense when you think of brain biology. To interpret a word you must unlock visual character recognition, language, experience context and relate the meaning to their own interest. Images and context or processed by our brains together, it’s a faster process. With this power of context at your fingertips, why wouldn’t you want to take full advantage?
I often see it on blogs by writers. Lots of great words but few to no visuals. Don’t be that kind of internet writer!
Not convinced? Here are a few more reasons EVERY article you write should be accompanied by at least ONE image (I tend to believe 2-3 is nice when possible)
- Image search engines may find your content based on the image.
- Social media sharing is 10 times more powerful when an image is connected.
- Images (especially with people) influence emotional ties and attention.
- The file name of your image is read by robots to help search relevance.
- Images break up your text, making it easier to scan.
So where to get these images. There are plenty of sites that give you the right to post their images like Pexels or Pixabay and even more sites for a small cost. I tend to like partnerships with talented local photographers. I’m sure they would appreciate your support.
BONUS: Formatting Mishaps I Won’t Repeat
Again, I need to come back to structure. In my early blogging days, I made many mistakes. The one that I think was the most wasteful was a lack of understanding of how the robots that scanned my material interpreted it. Let’s face it. Your words are meant for humans, but it is the robots that will read it first. You need to build trust there. And if they are confused, they rank low and move on. Read more of my stories
- Understand basic code (a little helps) H1, H2, H3… will get you by
- Linking to other’s blogs doesn’t hurt, just choose relevant ones
- Social media sharing does not need to be automatic, choose time and place
- Building wonderful worlds can be accomplished with structure (and whimsy)
- Font matters, no website needs more than two
So are you excited to get writing? I bet you will find success.
Stephanie Michelle Scott is a 9-year social media pro who has advocated for storytelling quality over quantity and building fans strategically far before the current trend. Find her at WildfireEffect.com, connect on social media @wildfireeffect