Writing Web Content that Works

Research

You want site visitors to have successful experiences, whether they are on a full screen, tablet, or mobile. Success = finding what they need, understanding what they find, and being able to satisfy whatever goal or task brought them to your site or app. Your web content is critical to that successful experience. People come to web sites for information, to do a task, to have a social encounter. Information, task, social encounter = content.

In this practical and fun workshop with Ginny Redish, you'll see the power of thinking of every use of your web site as a conversation started by your site visitor.

You'll see how personas and scenarios help you write great web content. You'll understand why people skim and scan on the web. You'll realize where on web sites people read and don't read – and why. You'll see and practice how to plan, organize, write, and evaluate content for web sites and mobile apps.

Ginny's workshops are always highly interactive with lots of discussion and practice.

Who should come to this workshop?

Everyone who contributes to web sites should understand the importance of content and the value of content as conversation. Of course, content strategists, content contributors, and editors will want to be part of this workshop. Information architects, designers, developers, managers, and product specialists will also enjoy and learn in this workshop. Everyone should know what makes content work well on web sites.

What will you learn?

By the end of this workshop you will be able to:

• Recognize the major characteristics of successful content for web and mobile.
• Use personas and scenarios to evaluate web content – and to plan, organize, and write great content.
• Have good conversations with your site visitors through your content.
• Use the principle of "bite, snack, meal" to organize content with key messages first so you grab readers right away.
• Put marketing messages where they will have the most impact.
• Write click-grabbing headlines.
• Break up your text with useful headings.
• Write in conversational style.
• Understand how great content works well for search engine optimization.