Online information for content producers

[Faglork]

Hi all,

let's put together a resource list for content producers. Any contributions are welcome.

articles on writing

Jakob Nielsen I: Writing for the Web

"You can double the usability of your web site by following these guidelines: for two sample sites studied in Sun's Science Office, we improved measured usability by 159% and 124% by rewriting the content according to the guidelines."
http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/


Jakob Nielsen II: Writing for the Web

A great collection of articles on various writing issues, like "Writing transactional email and confirmation messages" or "Information pollution":
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Catherine Titta: Writing Well for the Web

"Writing for the Web is different. Surfers often have short attention spans, so you have to grab their attention with graphics and great text. Stick with the few tried and true writing tips in this article and you'll be on your way to writing well for the Web. We'll also cover the most common mistakes found on web pages."
http://www.webreference.com/content/writing/

Mark Bernstein: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web

"Living sites are only as good as today’s update. If the words are dull, nobody will read them, and nobody will come back. If the words are wrong, people will be misled, disappointed, infuriated. If the words aren’t there, people will shake their heads and lament your untimely demise."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writeliving/

Jennie Robinson: Resurrect Your Writing, Redeem Your Soul

"Bad writing that has been “Webified” can look great on screen and to search engines, but to human beings, it’s still just bad writing."
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/...eem_your_soul/

Sarah Horton: Web Teaching - Writing for the Web

"Developing content for a Web site will probably mean writing new materials. The writing you have already done for your courses - for handouts and other instructional materials - may not work well on the Web. Writing Web documents is different from writing for print, and if you simply move your print documents onto Web pages, you are not using the medium to its best advantage."
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/text.html

Websites

"A free web writing guide for intranet writers, web content managers and web portal content providers."
http://www.webpagecontent.com/


"Digital Web Magazine is a non-profit publication created by a world-wide network of volunteers dedicated to producing quality educational and informative material free-of-charge, to foster the development of the web for the benefit of all."
http://www.digital-web.com/topics/


(to be continued)

[MsLeigh]

Why not a website on writing?

You can write web content, but being able to write well is a learned skill.

Try Absolute Write for starters.

[Lonna]

I think good content is crucial to a website. I've had my own up for nearly 10 years, starting it to highlight the books I write (from environmental science fiction to fantasy to my own true cancer survival stories--plus a host of unpublished children's stories, interviews, etc.

I have also put my favorite photos up--from my mountain burning to calm Doubtful Sound in New Zealand, with mist floating atop the water--a mirror image.

I get emails from around the world. I offer the first few chapters of all my books for free and have a standing offer for a free copy of my first cancer survival story, "Crossing the Chemo Room," to any cancer patient who cannot afford to buy it. I sell my books through http://www.amazon.com, but I give most of them away, having spent the last 3 summers/their winters in New Zealand to help raise money for their cancer survivor (my kids ski).

A visitor could spend hourse browsing through my website, reading everything from an interview with International Figure Skater Sasha Cohen (which I did for a skating magazine when my kids were skating at the same rink as Sasha and Michelle Kwan) to "A Visit to Heaven," my favorite interview--with a sleptical medical doctor who had a nearly fatal asthma atack, his hear stopped, his brain got no oxygen for several minutes, and the doctors were about to "pull the plug" when his wife asked for a second opinion.

The doctor came back, and although he has difficulty talking, is blind, and is mostly in a wheelchair, when he speaks of the things he saw, even my 12-year-old listens with her mouth open--and the photo I got was untouched, snapped quickly, only one, as I was running late and had already done two feature stories that day for our local paper.

So, content counts! And being on the web a long time counts! And adding links, and answering emails from Africa, etc. Let's keep the web personal and interesting, and people will want to see our sites.

[saikatblogger]

Just a question:

Do you think that web content writers need some basic SEO knowledge too? I think yes...basic conceptions about keywords, header tags, keyword density could enhance the web writing process, however, some people think differently:

AjiNIMC » SEO a curse for Content Writers

Anyways, a good topic has been started here. I would like to add Copy Blogger to the list of resources.