 Good afternoon. My name is Nakesha Charles, and my talk is about writing for the web, specifically writing content. I am a writer, an English teacher. I've been publishing with WordPress since 2009. So after I graduated from undergrad, I was looking for a way to publish on my own. I had published with print publications and for content of websites, writing biographies and different things. And I was looking for a way to publish my own work. And that's how I came to WordPress. First things first is you need to know the rules before you break them. The rules you can break vary depending on context, audience, and tone of voice. Meaning if you're having a conversational, if you're putting out something that's more casual or conversational that your, the rules that you'll be able to break would be different than if you have a formal, more business style writing that you're putting out. If you're breaking a rule of grammar and or style, be sure it provides quicker clarity. It can help make content appear more fresh. Examples. So the rule if you're writing for print or if you're writing in general is that you don't use sentence fragments. When you're breaking this rule, sentence fragments are okay as long as they are, as long as the corresponding context explains what is not stated in the fragment. Another example is spell the word for the numbers under 10. When you're breaking this rule in web content, the numbers, even those under 10, jump out the page more than spelling out the word for the number. Say again. So usually under the AP style and rules, they would tell you that you have to spell out the word for number two or number three or five or whatever, right? But when you're writing for the web, those numbers jump off the page to your reader, more so than writing the number out. So using actual numbers is going to be something that will be more, that people will pick up more when they're reading off of the web. Because we scan pages, because we don't necessarily read deeply so much when we're on the web, these type of things you want to include because it helps to grab your reader's attention. Well, I would, yes, no, I understand. But there's going to be times when you know what the rule is. But if there's something that specific that you want to jump off the page, these are things that are going to grab the attention of your readers quicker. So sometimes you can't worry about the Grammar Nazis. Especially when what you're really trying to do is grab the attention of your reader, right? Does that clarify? Yes? Another thing we're told is that we need in our paragraphs to have three to five sentences to make it a paragraph. When you're breaking this rule, when writing for the web, short of paragraphs, it just looks better and it makes better sense to keep it small and short and concise. When you go onto certain sites and you see these paragraphs of content that are just one after the other, they don't have any spaces in between them. And they're long and lengthy. People are not reading that. They're not reading it. They're going to scan through it. They're really looking for the data that they're specifically there for more often than not. So you want to give it to them in small doses. So single sentence paragraphs stand out to the reader. What I just said, web users often scan pages, reading little content instead, focusing on finding key information. So they're engaged in seeking an answer to a specific question. As opposed to laying back and just, you know, leisurely enjoying a book. It's a different, you have a different purpose. So the way that you, the reader digest the information is different. So the searchability of web content differentiates the medium from other forms of writing. Snippets work well with web writing. So small, short, concise. This is just a quote on writing that I particularly like from Octavia Butler. You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff. And gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. Keep at it, keep going, keep seeing what the results are. Don't stop, keep trying. So this is the bad style we were talking about. It's a particularly bad example of a whole bunch of words on the page that just keep going and going. There's no space. There's no format to it. When you look at this as a reader, you're not going to be very interested in trying to get from the beginning to the end of this. It doesn't flow well. And of course this is a shameless plug because this is my writing from my website, showing you the good style. It helps the reader to digest the content in small doses. So you're going to have, I have a few one-sentence paragraphs in there. It starts off strong with a bolder paragraph from the beginning, but then we go into shorter, smaller paragraphs. They're just single sentences, yes. Well, if you're bulletin, you're bulletin within the content that you're writing, right? So you come to a point and you want to make a list. What I'm talking about is forming your entire content in small doses. You understand what I'm saying? So like if I write a full post, these are my paragraphs where we're starting. I'm skipping lines. I'm creating some white space on the page. But you're only going to bullet if you want to make a list. Say I want to say, you know, I don't know, a list of things that are top 10 or, you know, that's the point when you would bullet things. I wouldn't necessarily bullet my full post or all of the content in a post. That answer your question? So talking about some of the similarities in print and web writing, both target a middle grade educational level reader. So we're not necessarily, when you're talking, when you're putting your content out there, you're not going to be writing on an academic collegiate level. You're writing and you're trying to keep it basic and simple and appealing to the most people that you can possibly reach. And both require a solid grasp of grammar rules. Whether, you know, some people think it's important or not, we can't just throw the rules away. Like I started with, you should know the rules before you break them. So there should be a reason for you to break them. And we still have to follow some sort of format and have those grammar rules in place. Bad writing is bad writing no matter where you publish it. Good writing is good writing no matter where you publish it. Both require concise phrasing. In print it's due to limited space to publish on the paper. But when you're talking about the web, it's because your reader is not looking for a long lengthy academic work. They're not looking for 500 to 1,000 word posts. People want quick, people want convenient, people want concise. So both start with your major concepts in the opening paragraph and then you support with details. So also when you're reading, I write from an opinion perspective so I don't write, I feel, and I think a lot because if you come to my page, you know that it's my opinion. You know that I'm the writer and this is what I think and this is how I feel, okay? So using headlines, subheads, images and diagrams, they should be clear and they should be bold. When writing for the web, be sure that the headlines and subheads include SEO friendly content. We know that, we talk about that all the time with our WordPress. Employee and editor and an editorial calendar. This is something that, you know, a second set of eyes is imperative. You want someone else reading it, someone else who can tell you whether those rules you may have broken, whether they are doing what the purpose of what you said, you want them to do, whether it's written well, whether there's errors, proofread and fact check your work. Always. Balance the words with the white space on the page and always double space between the paragraphs. The differences in print and web writing. So web writing is highly accessible data. It eliminates the need to have a copy of your copy. Web writing allows for deeper examination of analytics which leads to better understanding of the contents reach. So if you publish a magazine, you never really know how many people are going to pick up that magazine and read it. One of the benefits of web writing is that you can see and measure how many people have come to that content, how long they've stayed, how long they've spent with it. So it is different in the way that you're able to measure your audience and what they've seen and how long they've spent with it. So be sure your web links are not broken. And web writing, you should rarely go over 300 words per post. You'll hear some people argue with this but I don't believe it. I don't agree with it. I think you should keep it short. I think you should keep it concise. And if you have to break it up into multiple posts, you should do that as well. When you start to get too long, people are clicking away and they're going away from where the point of what you're trying to express to them. Minimum 14 point font or the ability of the web user to easily change the size of the content to a readable level. Consider the color of the words against the color of the background and be sure your words can be seen on all of the screens. When I say all screens, I mean your small screens, your big screens, your laptop screens, your phone screens. Different screens have different when you pick it up and you look at it from different devices, you're going to get a different look in the way that it loads. So you want to be sure that everything is visible on all different devices. Resources and people, places where I have picked up the data for this information. Usability.gov, you see all that. And my contact information. Again, my name is Nikesha Charles. The website is cnikesha.com. I'm on Twitter and everywhere else at cNikesha. Did anybody have any questions for Nikesha? You pick up the keywords and you want to, you know, have it heavy with keywords. But if it's over 300 words, it starts to get to be longer than what a page or two of information is. Now, when you go to look for something, think about that. If you, even if you went to a book to look for a specific thing, if it's pages and pages and pages long, you're going to look for the information that you specifically went there to find, right? So, I think you're losing your audience after that point. You are, it's, when you go to a page, you go for what you're looking for, you scan over it, you read it. If it's longer than that, it's just, I think you're losing people's interest at that point. It needs to be quick and concise. Now, you still need to include those keywords and you need to have that content within the 300 words. And maybe there's another post for the next 300. But those long lengthy posts, they're not effective in holding the attention of the reader. The main ideas, you know, if I'm writing a music review, then I'm going to link to that artist's page. I'm going to link to the video maybe of my favorite song or, you know, it depends on what the content is. But definitely link to what your main ideas are. So, yes, three to five. And tagging, every, tags in every post. Categorizing everything. You know, but yes, three to five links to external sites to keep that information so that if they want to research more then they can do that. Okay, so any further questions? Nikesha will be available at the happiness bar. So let's give her a final round of applause. Thank you so much.