Category Archives: Content

Six Articles that will Help you Improve your Content

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I read. A lot. And I love to share what I’m reading when I find something that will prove interesting or helpful to others.

Here are six articles that provide further information on some of the concepts we cover in our training for web editors. They offer practical tips on improving your content, from adding structure to enhancing search optimisation. Many also include reminders of the essential elements of writing for the web.

1. Writing great page titles and headings

A great practical guide to writing page titles and headings. Learn how you can write headings to engage and inform your users, and improve the search optimisation of your page. All examples included are from university websites.

“three guidelines that will help you create titles and headings that rock: 1) describe, 2) contextualize and 3) simplify and clarify.”

Read the full article on the Meet Content blog: Introducing Your Content – Page Titles and Headings

2. The importance of an introduction

This article by Jakob Nielsen from 2007 is still relevant today. It highlights the importance of introductory text on a web page… but only when done well.

“short intros can increase usability by explaining the remaining content’s purpose”

Read the full article on the Nielsen Norman Group website: Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill?

3. Bold benefits your readers and search ranking

This article makes it on to the list simply for having a reference to Star Trek.

Ok, not really. The idea of using bold to aid search engine optimisation was something that participants in our first training session found useful. Here’s an article that outlines it in more detail.

“the head of Google’s webspam team, Matt Cutts, has hinted that the search engine might look favourably on bolded phrases.”

Read the full article on the Sticky Content blog: To boldly go – how bolding words can give you SEO lift-off

4. How to improve information-rich websites

We’ve all got pages on our sites where there’s a lot of information to cover. Sometimes it’s hard to see how we can make this less dense and more engaging. This article provides some solutions for how to present complex information without overwhelming your users.

“When there’s a blizzard of information users can struggle to complete the task they came to your site for.”

Read the full article on the Sticky Content blog: 3 problems with information-rich websites and how to solve them

5. The problem with duplicate content

This post presents three reasons why duplicate content is bad for your website. Find out how it affects your users, search engines and you.

“duplicate web content can impact findability, usability and user comprehension.”

Read the full article on the Meet Content blog: Why Duplicate Content Is Bad for the Web

6. Why you need an editorial calendar

Richard Prowse, our counterpart in the digital team at the University of Bath, offers an introduction to editorial calendars. He covers why they’re useful and what you need to consider when creating one.

“you can use an editorial calendar to plan which content you’ll need and by when”

Read the full article on Richard’s Content Bear blog: How to Create an Editorial Calendar

Help us build the ultimate reading list for web editors

Are there any articles that you’ve found helpful in explaining a concept relating to planning or writing web content? Share them in the comments.

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Editing Images for Use on Your Website

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Last week, Jane wrote about how to improve your website images and videos. Her post focused on image selection and placement. Go and read it if you haven’t already, it’ll set you up for what’s to come.

Welcome back.

In this post I’m going to cover some tips for editing images for your website.
Our new template has a much more visual feel than our current design. There are a number of ways you can use images to enhance your written content.

Grids

These can include landing page and news grids.

Example of a homepage gridMastheads

Mastheads provide a visual opener to a page. The image slider used in our current design gives a similar effect.

Example of a mastheadIt’s a full width image with a text overlay. This means that you need to think carefully about where the focus of your image lies. If it’s on the left of the picture then it’s going to be obscured by the text. We’ve got a visual guide to the safe zones which highlights where the danger areas are.

Details of safe zones for a masthead imageThe safe zones logic applies to the image slider in the existing template too. An example of this in use is the Newcastle University London website.

Content images

You can also add images into the main content area. The default alignment for these is on the right (like our current design). On mobile they stretch to fill the full width and flow below the content.

This behaviour requires landscape images. If you’re using our current template we recommend you use landscape images too – this means your images are more likely to be reusable in the new template.

Tools for cropping and resizing images

We’ve assessed a variety of online photo editing tools and found one for you that’s easy to use and retains the high quality of your original photography. It’s called Fotor.

See our image guide (University login required) for details of the required sizes for each type of image and a step-by-step guide to using Fotor.

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How to Improve your Website Images and Videos

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Images and video are used as supporting content on the University’s websites.
People don’t tend to prioritize our websites specifically for images or videos – they visit for information; your content.

That said, content can be greatly enhanced by using images or video to support your messages if they are used in the right context. So what is the right way to use them?

Choosing an image/video

High Quality

Use only high quality images. Images should not be blurry, stretched or pixelated. There is a range of University photography you can use in the photo library. Always preview your image to check the quality before publishing.

Videos should be selected from an official University YouTube channel and embedded in your site. Don’t upload the original video file directly to your website.

Support the content

Images and videos are supporting messages. They should always make sense to the user, their job is to help to enhance the meaning of your page. Your content should provide the context for the image/video.

It’s important your images and video is relevant to the content on the page. User testing increasingly shows that people are feeling more and more negative towards the use of generic stock images.

Less is more

If you have too many images or videos on a page, you can compromise the effectiveness of your content. They can:

  • slow page load times
  • interrupt the reading experience
  • make pages disjointed and harder to read

Images of text and complex images, like flowcharts or graphs, can also present a barrier for users accessing your content, and should be avoided.

This content in the image is effectively invisible to users of screen readers and anyone viewing the text only version of your site, for example a mobile user with images turned off. It is also impossible for search engines to index this content – so if you want people to find this information, use content!

If you must include a complex image in your site then a text alternative of the essential information contained in the image is required.

Image size and orientation

For sites edited via Contribute the standard image size is 320 x 180 pixels. We recommend that you use landscape images. Specific templates may have alternative sized images for banners and grid layouts.

Sites edited in T4 have many image options. For these size requirements you can view the image guide on our demo site (University login required).

Keep an eye out for a future post on editing images.

As videos are embedded onto your webpage, your website template should automatically provide you with the right size and a preview image for the box. Just look at our support pages to find out how to embed a video (University login required).

Alt text

Alt text provides alternative, textual content when an image cannot be displayed or for users of screen readers. It should be descriptive, but not necessarily a literal description of the image. Think about describing what the image represents.

Linking images

Many of our websites contain pages with grids of images, for example the Open Day landing page. Linking the image used here increases the area a user can ‘click’ or ‘tap’.

This is useful for mobile users who may be trying to select links using their finger or a stylus. Image links should always be supported by links in the text of your page.

Social media

Individual posts and campaigns run on social media are ideal for hosting video content. These channels tend to be seen as more engaging for people, as they can so easily share content – but more importantly, they enable people to talk directly to us.

Consider using social media alongside your website in this way to help your messaging. Social media can help direct people to your website, and your website should connect people to your social media.

Find out more about using social media in this way from the University’s Social Media Team.

Final thoughts

So that’s your whistle stop tour of improving images and videos for your website. These assets should always be used to enhance your pages, to enable people to better engage with your content. Find out more from our guide to images (University login required).

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Meet the Supporting Cast for your Core Content

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Me: “Hey website, I have a question, help me answer it. How do I get to Newcastle?”

Website: “Before I do that, why not stay a while, look at our pictures; see how they glide by. We’re showcasing our city, our campus, our staff, our facilities, and our cat (oh, you didn’t stick around for that one).”

Me (scrolling quickly): “No really, just directions would do…”

Website: “Could I interest you in this video – it’s actually about the Law School, but you know, it might have a map in it, or perhaps a Virtual Tour? We’ve got a nice one of the Sports Centre: the gym is amazing”.

Me: “Er, no thanks, bye.”

Meet your supporting cast

These image galleries, videos and virtual tours have a lot to bring to your web pages.

They can provide engaging content. They help reinforce reputation and quality. They should act as support for the core content of the page.

Problems occur when they take over and try to be the star of the show.

They interrupt the flow of your carefully crafted content. They butt in. They push the priority messages out of the way.

 “Most people come to the Web because there’s an information gap. Something has cropped up. There’s something they don’t know, something they need to do.”

Gerry McGovern

Prioritise web page content

We should be careful about placing too much emphasis on the supporting content in a page.

Stop this from happening by focusing on the priorities for the page.  Read our blog post on Structuring Content to help you.

All our supporting content flows after the core content. On desktop it floats right or under the core message. On mobile it flows under the core messages.

This means our site users are not interrupted when trying to find the answer to their questions. The supporting content is there if they have time or want to read more, watch or listen.

 “Let us not focus on getting people to spend time with our content but rather on seeing how we can save them time.”

Gerry McGovern

Supporting content examples

Supporting web content includes a whole raft of things from images to interactive virtual tours. As long as it’s relevant to the page and its placement is considered: it’s all good.

Qualifiers

Qualifiers back up our claims. They could be quotes or accolades that reinforce a core message. Partner logos and accreditation can also lend weight to statements within the content.

Images

A picture is worth a thousand words – this can be true. A good, clear, relevant photo can enhance your core content.

But, too many images can start to bring noise and distraction to the page. Consider displaying these as an image gallery. This can group together similar photography: facilities for example.

Video

Add a video if it supports the content of the page – don’t get sucked into adding videos “just because they were made”. This all represents clutter to your end user.

Virtual tours

These are a great way to showcase facilities and can help engage with your users. Again, make sure they support the context of the page.

Calls to action

Supporting content can also provide a next step.

They include calls to action like booking a place at an event. We have styled content buttons for this.

We’ve also got a suite of social media icons that can help increase visits to Facebook or Twitter.

Delete it!

Test if it really is supporting content. If you took it away would your reader still leave the page happy that they found out what they needed?

References

Gerry McGovern. The Challenge for Writers of Web Content. New Thinking. 24 May 2015.

Related posts

Image credit: magic moment by rvoegtli on Flickr

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Experts to Inspire You

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We like to keep ourselves up to date with the latest developments in the web industry by reading. A lot.

We read books, articles, websites and blogs and thought we’d pick some of the quotes we really, really like. Hopefully you can spot why…

Usability

“When I look at a web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory.

“I should be able to ‘get it’ – what it is and how to use it- without expending any effort thinking about it.”

Steve Krug
Don’t make me think

“It is very important that your website is visually pleasing. However it is much more important your website is useful.”

Gerry McGovern
Killer Web Content

Your content is important

“Language is at the heart of communication, and the only purpose of a website is to communicate.”

Seth Godin
The First Rule of Web Design

“Your writing is important. At the end of the day, you’re a person communicating with other people.”

Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee
Nicely said. Writing for the web with style and purpose

“If the heading is the hook, the summary is the line that pulls you in. The summary gives readers all the information they need to decide whether to read on or not.”

Gerry McGovern
Killer Web Content

“A person who produces content without understanding the tasks the content needs to support is a dangerous person indeed.”

Gerry McGovern
The Stranger’s Long Neck

“With the limitations of the mobile screen as a guideline and a barrier, you’d naturally have to write differently.

  • You’d get to the point.
  • You’d put the most important information up front.
  • You’d remove all the marketing jargon and fluff.
  • You’d write short declarative sentences.
  • You wouldn’t use a long word when a short one would do.
  • You’d make every word earn its place.

Writing this way isn’t just good for writing for mobile. It’s good writing for everyone.”

Karen McGrane
Content Strategy for Mobile

Going mobile

“Use going mobile as a lens to make all our content better regardless of platform.

“It’s a big chance to create a better user experience by improving the quality of our content. Let’s not waste it.”

Karen McGrane
Content Strategy for Mobile

“The work you do now, to structure content for reuse and get it ready for mobile, is going to also make that content more prepared for wherever the future takes it.

“Considering all the different devices on which your content may be displayed forces you to focus – to take stock of what’s really important and to get rid of things that aren’t.”

Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Content Everywhere

Your messaging

“Messaging is the art of deciding what information or ideas you have that you want to give to – and get from- your users.”

Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach
Content Strategy for the Web

“Use the mobile screen’s constraints to help prioritise your primary, secondary and supporting messages.”

Karen McGrane
Content Strategy for Mobile

“You must have an ending to your content that is a call to action. Good web content is always task-focused, and the best ending allows your customers to go about completing their tasks.”

Gerry McGovern
Killer Web Content

A final thought…

“Today, many websites are damaging the reputation of the organization. Every time someone finds the wrong content or clicks on a broken link, the brand is hurt.”

Gerry McGovern
Killer Web Content

Feel inspired

So, do you feel inspired? And can you tell why we like these quotes?

These experts all advocate good writing practice to improve the website experience for all.

They all absolutely, utterly agree on one thing: content is king.

You don’t have to be a designer or a developer to create a useful, successful website at the University (we’ll do that for you) but you do have to care about your content.

References

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