Writing for the Web is Mandatory to be Successful Online

Posted by Marc Bitanga Mar 10, 2009

I recently came across a Los Angeles Times article titled "It's Web 101 for Experienced Intern" that highlighted how Lois, a 55-year old accomplished magazine editor, had lost her position due to downsizing and was now starting anew with an online startup as an intern.

The article focused on Lois' experience of transitioning from a traditional print media background to the online world. And how she had to learn and adopt new web writing skills & techniques in order to write articles that both appealed to her online audience as well as followed web writing best practices in order for her piece to be found & perform well in search engines.

Through her internship, Lois discovered new research tools such as Google Trends, which allowed her to identify the amount of demand and timing for her subject matter. She also had to construct her articles in a particular way by emphasizing the predominant keyword phrases in the title and subheadings. Most importantly Lois had to shift her thinking from her old print days; instead of writing titles & copy that was quirky she had to be mindful of the type of phrases that her readers would use when searching for her articles...and use that same language within her content.

The biggest hurdle for writers with a similar background as Lois, is to understand that in the traditional print world readers purchase the package (the magazine or newspaper) not a specific article. Readers are fairly loyal to certain magazines & newspapers and will pick up their favorite publication and discover articles within this package. In the online world, readers are much less loyal. They tend to go where they are able to find what they were looking for. Readers discover content mainly through search engines, which makes the discoverabiltiy and effectiveness of an article extremely important. As an example, 90% of Suite101.com's traffic is from search engines such as Google, Yahoo & MSN. Much of this traffic is directly to our articles.

As more newspapers begin to feel the economic crunch, and journalists begin exploring online writing jobs and opportunities, journalists must adopt the concept of writing for the web in order to be successful online.