WEB160 » Resources
Books:
- Hot Text: Web Writing that Works, by Jonathan & Lisa Price
- Search Engine Visibility, by Shari Thurow
- Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug
- Killer Web Content: Make the Sale, Deliver the Service, Build the Brand by Gerry McGovern
- Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson
- Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO, and Beyond, by Aarron Walter
- Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, by Janice (Ginny) Redish
Websites:
- Writing for the Web | Jakob Nielsen’s UseIt
- Proof Reading Marks | Designers Toolbox
- Resources at Hot Text | Web Writing that Works
- SEO: The Free Beginner’s Guide | SEOmoz
Articles:
- 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web | A List Apart
- Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web | UseIt.com
- How Little Do Users Read? | UseIt.com
- Writing Web Content | Usability.gov
- 10 SEO Techniques All Top Web Sites Should Use | FreelanceFolder
Downloads:
- Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide | Google [PDF 560kb]
Examples:
- Production Vault Newsletter | Premium Design Works
This portion of the Premium Design Works website is written by Mike Sinkula for the Web Design & Development students at Seattle Central College and the Human Centered Design & Engineering students at the University of Washington.
4 Comments:
really good video on typography (for the web)
http://www.dontfeartheinternet.com/css/don%E2%80%99t-fear-web-typography
good personas cheat sheet…
http://luxr.posterous.com/persona-cheat-sheet-0
Hi, wasn’t quite sure where to put this link but this seemed appropriate.
New and powerful SEO stuff:
http://schema.org/
I really like Halvorson’s Content Strategy book. Bbbut, tonight I was reading her company’s blog, and noticed that articles don’t appear to be structured for the web. (Disclaimer—I only read a few posts.)
1. Her employees write super long blog posts (paid by the word?) that don’t appear to use the inverted pyramid style of writing. It takes several paragraphs just to figure out what a post is about. At the end of the article they finally offer suggestions for what you “should” do. The blog also doesn’t use excerpts, so you can’t browse through posts easily and pick a different article without scrolling forever.
http://blog.braintraffic.com/category/editorial-strategy/
Halvorson’s posts are better: http://blog.braintraffic.com/2010/01/content-strategy-more-than-a-bunch-of-tactics/
A descriptive title tells you what the article is about. But they seem to lack an intro with a hypothesis. Or maybe it’s in the title—or is that her conclusion?
Again, you must read to the end of the article for the pearl of wisdom.
If we have time in class, could you please comment on these blog posts? I’d like to know if they are written correctly for the web? Or if they a different style of writing. Perhaps long winded essays meant tease potential customers into hiring them.
Thanks in advance, -Jack
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