Writing for an international audience
If you are a native English speaker, have you wondered what it’s like to read web pages written in English when English is not your first language?
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Duplicate content: why it’s bad and how to avoid it
It’s it’s not not much much fun fun reading reading the the same same thing thing twice twice, is is it it?
Avoid uninformative link phrases
Links are more useful when they make sense out of context.
Plain English for the web
When writing for the web, use plain English to make your content easy to read by all users. Plain English will also help your page rank higher in search engine results.
IWMW 2018: Let’s improve our training
Recently, I attended the IWMW(Institutional Web Management Workshop) 2018, a UK-wide conference for anyone working in digital in higher education. Roughly 150 delegates attended from all over the UK and Ireland. Every…
Common content mistakes and how to fix them
Part of the work done by members of digicomms is ensure all content on the University’s website meets digital standards. In particular, any text on the website or in print materials must meet the University’s house…
5 tips for writing concisely
One of the key techniques for writing for the web is to keep content concise. Eye-tracking studies show that the longer a web page is, the less content users will read. Keeping your writing concise will save your…
Writing for digital vs writing for print
The advent of the internet has drastically changed the way we receive and communicate information. Previously, written content could only be published as physical print, and was therefore static and unchangeable;…
Fact-driven web content
Interesting facts make webpages compelling Web users are task-driven and looking for information. They also dislike “marketese” and “happy talk” (or, as Jakob Nielsen calls it in this article, “blah-blah”). As such, it…
Eliminate happy talk
On the web, context kills, speed saves Here is an article from Gerry McGovern about one of my pet peeves, happy talk. Web users are highly task driven, and they are not interested in our content attempting to set a…