Freelance Writing Jobs – Understanding Web Writing (By Luthando)

Do you want to get hired for web writing jobs? If so, you need understand a little of how your content is found and read. “Get a blog and write”, is the best advice that I can give you. In addition, here are three more tips which will help.

1. Keywords Count, but So Do Real Live Humans

Think about how you read print publications for a moment.

Magazines have tables of contents, and books have indices so that readers can find what they want. Unfortunately there’s no table of contents and no index for the Internet — or is there?

Keywords are the way your content will be found online. They’re both tables of contents, indices and much more. Unfortunately, when some new writers hear about keywords they go hog wild and cram keywords into every paragraph.

Relax. The search engines are very smart. Write naturally.

Include your chosen keywords (just one or two per page) in these areas:

* In the page title
* In the page description
* In the first paragraph, and
* In the last paragraph.

Now forget all about keywords. Focus on writing for humans. People use the search engines, and when they find your page they want something worth reading.

2. Keep It Simple: Provide Links and Context

People read the web on a computer screen, and sometimes a very tiny screen, when they read on a mobile device. They’re not concentrating, their attention is divided. They scan a web page quickly looking for what they need.

Most site visitors spend less than three seconds on a page before clicking away. Your aim when writing for the web is to get them to stay longer than three seconds. How do you do that?

Start by making your content inviting: use lots of white space. Aim to keep your paragraphs three to five sentences long, and containing a single thought.

Use plenty of links. Your readers may click the links or may not, but providing them is a courtesy; it’s also essential in many cases, when you want a reader to do something specific.

You should also provide context. Remember that every web page stands alone. You have no way of knowing where your readers came from: they need context for comprehension.

3. Keep It Active: a Website Is Never Done

Unlike print, a webpage is never published forever. You can change a page often, and in many cases you should. The more often you can revisit pages to refresh them, the better. The web search engines love fresh content.

Therefore, think of your website as an organism which you need to feed.

Source: www.askpaccosi.com