You are here

Writing for the internet: more learnings from the Episcopal Communicators Conference

Writing for the internet

When writing for the internet, “Get to the point fast,” said Catherine Kohn, award-winning writer and Associate Director of the Associated Church Press, in her workshop I attended at the Episcopal Communicators Conference last month.

Kohn started with concepts grounded in traditional journalism, and moved on to features unique to online communications on websites and social media, such keywords and “charticles.”

("Charticles" was a new term for everyone at the workshop – more about that in a minute.)

Here's how Kohn suggests writing for the Internet:

Text: the "inverted pyramid" of journalism still works

Inverted pyramid

Follow the inverted pyramid (right), and keep paragraphs short and tight.

(My note: If you're posting a link to your article on Facebook, the first few sentences will be included as "teaser" text, so it's important to get the crucial details right at the top.)

Avoid long, unbroken blocks of text. On the internet, attention spans are short, and long sections of nothing but text are off-putting.

Before you post your copy, read it aloud, and then rewrite anything that sounds clunky, awkward or unclear.

Typos can ruin the credibility of a piece, so be scrupulous about proofreading.

If your article is very long, consider turning it into a series.

(Inverted pyramid image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

How to use headlines and subheadlines

Headlines must be information carriers, to hook viewers into reading the article.

(My note: Remember, on the internet you have mere seconds to capture the reader's attention. A vague headline that doesn't convey much – for example, "Important announcement" or "Reflections on Easter" – will lose potential readers.)

Subheadlines can help break up a long section of text, and encourage the reader to keep scrolling down.

Why keywords are important

Keywords are the words used in searches to find information on the web. Writers should use appropriate keywords, especially in headlines, where they improve the site's search engine optimization, and at beginning of the text, where they will catch readers’ attention and help them decide what to read.

Search on "Vacation Bible School"

(My note: What summer events are you planning, for which people in your community might be searching online? Identify the keywords or phrases – for example: Vacation Bible School, choir camp, retreat – and make sure they're in your headlines and at the top of your text.)

About those “charticles”…

“Charticles” means breaking up an article into chunks, to make it both more visually appealing and more digestible, so to speak, on the web.

Some of those chunks are visual, such as photos, videos, graphics and, yes, charts. However, text can also be “chunked.” Consider each paragraph as an individual chunk of text (you remembered to keep them short and tight, right?) and headlines and subheadlines are natural chunks.

(My note: In this blog post, I've tried my best to make use of charticles.)

See also Some things I learned at the Episcopal Communicators Conference posted on May 6, 2014.

Add new comment

Our comment policy requires that you use your real first and last names and provide an email address (your email will not be published). The Communications Office of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark reserves the right not to publish comments that are posted anonymously or that we deem do not foster respectful dialogue.