Writing for the Internet

Online material is best presented in short segments of text written in a clear, concise style, with ample use of editorial landmarks such as headings. This style facilitates scanning, a reading method used by many Web readers. But online prose does not have to be stripped down to a few headlines and bullet points to be effective.

Prose
General advice on clear, concise writing:

• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Avoid the use of parentheticals and em or en dashes. If you write clearly and concisely, you won't need them.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Chunking Content
Rather than provide a single page with all the information on a topic, break the information into chunks. Group related pieces of content into subsections and present discrete topics in pages in those sections. This approach accommodates online reading by providing direct access to subcategories of information rather than combining all the information about a topic on a single page.

This method of presenting information translates well to the Web for several reasons:

• Few Web users read long passages of text on screen.
• Discrete chunks of information lend themselves to Web links. Users of Web links expect to find a small amount of relevant information, not a book's worth of general content.
• Through chunking, information can be organized and presented in a modular layout that is consistent throughout the site. This allows users not only to apply their experience with a site in future searches and explorations but also to predict how an unfamiliar section of a website will be organized.

The concept of a chunk of information must be flexible and consistent with common sense, logical organization, and convenience. Let the nature of the content suggest how it should be subdivided and organized.

Front-Load Your Content
Make sure the text you present is of immediate value. Avoid empty chatter, such as welcome messages from unit managers or instructions for using the site. Don't use the first paragraph on a page to tell users what information they'll find on the page; instead, start with the information, written in a concise and factual inverted pyramid style.

The inverted pyramid style offers a number of advantages:

• Important information comes first, where it is more likely to be seen and remembered.
• The front-loading of content permits efficient scanning for information.
• The major facts presented at the beginning establish a context for later secondary information.
• The structure places facts and keywords at the head of the page, where they carry more weight in search engine relevance analysis.

Stick to the Point
Write in easily understood sentences, and keep the content of each page focused on the subject matter. This focus helps the reader evaluate the page content quickly, optimizes search engine visibility, and improves search ranking.

Segment Text for Easy Scanning
Browsing a page is easier when the text is broken into segments, introduced by headings that name or describe the subject of the segments. Creating these segments often requires breaking up long paragraphs and using more subheadings than you would for print publication. Remember that a long paragraph may fill a computer screen with a visually monotonous block of text.

Use Descriptive Headings
Avoid catchy but meaningless headings. Don't force readers to read a text segment to identify its topic.

Hyperlinks

• Link short descriptive phrases within body copy. Do not use phrases like "click here," "learn more," or "go to."
• When linking to another website, use the name of the site, not its URL (e.g., MyNewSchool, not my.newschool.edu).
• All links to external websites, including New School subdomains, should open in a new browser window.
• Use specific, deep links, instead of generic ones (e.g., https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types, not https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/).
• Make sure email addresses use mailto: hot links and are written in lowercase (e.g., [email protected], not [email protected]).
• Do not link headings.
• Highlighting or linking meaningless or ambiguous phrases will not help you optimize your content for search engines and may even harm the search visibility of your page by adding confusing keywords to the mix.

Maintain Your Content
Regularly review and update your webpages. Out-of-date or incorrect Web content frustrates users and reflects poorly on the university. Bimonthly or quarterly reviews are sufficient for some webpages; others require more frequent revision.

HTML is the key to getting maximum flexibility and return on your investment in Web content. From its beginnings, HTML was designed to clearly define a document's hierarchical structure (headline 1, headline 2, paragraph, list, headline 3 etc.) and the visual presentation of the document (boldface, italics, font, type size, color, etc.). HTML markup is considered semantic when standard HTML tags are used to convey meaning and content structure, it is not simply to make text look a certain way in a browser.

The semantic approach to Web markup is a central concept underlying efficient Web coding, information architecture, universal usability, search engine visibility, and maximum display flexibility. Web content is accessed through Web browsers, mobile computing devices of all kinds, and screen readers. It is also read by search engines and other computing systems, which extract meaning and context from the way the content is marked up in HTML.

The most important headline on any page is the page title. On this page it is the red text at the top of the page. You will never need to create a title on a New School website, it is something set by the CMS.

This is how you see the content:

This is ordinary paragraph text within the body of the document, in which words and phrases may be set in bold for emphasis or italics to mark them as book titles. Use boldface type for emphasis sparingly.

This is a Sub-headline That is Secondary in Importance to the Page Title

Present related things in the form of a list.

• A list signals that items are conceptually related.
• Lists can be ordered (with numerals) or unordered (with bullets).
• Cascading Style Sheets can be used to style lists in many different ways.

This is a Sub-Headline Related to the Secondary One Above

The style of this headline indicates to readers and search engines that it is less important than the larger one above.

This is how browsers and search engines see the same content:

<h1>The Page Title</h1>
<p>This is ordinary paragraph text within the body of the document, in which words and phrases may be set in bold for emphasis or italics to mark them as <em>book titles</em>. <strong>Use boldface type for emphasis sparingly<strong>.</p>
<h2>This is a Sub-Headline of Secondary Importance to the Page Title</h2>
<p>Present related things in the form of a list.</p>
<ul>
<li>A list signals that items are conceptually related.</li>
<li>Lists may be ordered (with numerals) or unordered (with bullets).</li>
<li>Cascading Style Sheets can be used to style lists in many different ways.</li>
</ul>
<h3>This is a Sub-eadline Related to the Secondary One Above</h3>
<p>The style of this headline indicates to readers and search engines that it is less important than the larger one above.</p>

On the surface, a structured document looks no different from one in which font size and other visual formatting are used to distinguish elements such as headings. When it comes to functionality, however, structure gives a webpage power and utility. Even in the simple example above, a search engine would be able to distinguish the importance and priority of the headlines, determine which keywords are important, and identify conceptually related items in a list. A Cascading Style Sheet designed specifically for mobile phones could display the headlines and text in fonts appropriate for small screens, and a screen reader would know where and how to pause or change voice tone to convey the content structure to a visually impaired reader.

On the New School website, the page title (H1) is rendered by the CMS, which automatically applies the title head tag; you need to concern yourself only with labeling heads H2, H3, H4, etc.. Keep in mind that the level of importance increases as the number in the heading designation decreases.

When readers use Web search engines, they generally enter words or short phrases that name or describe what they are seeking. Along with the page title, these words and phrases, known as keywords, determine the relevance rank of a page in the search engine's indexes. For search engine optimization (SEO), a good keyword strategy is to make sure that key page elements are working in concert to present the page content accurately. Ideally, your page should have one key word or phrase, which appears in most or all of the following elements:

• Page title
• Major (h1, h2, or h3) headings
• The words that appear early in titles and near the beginnings of the top five paragraphs of text

Never gratuitously repeat keywords or use tricks like placing white text on a white background to hide keywords. Even in well-written and edited text, keywords will make up only 5 to 8 percent of the number of words on an average page of text. Pages with a suspiciously high keyword rate will lose search engine ranking; pages in which hidden word repetition tricks are used may be banned from mainstream search engines.

The best keyword advice for good search visibility are the same as those for writing well for the Web; write clear, concise, interesting prose, and check your page titles and the other elements listed above to make sure key descriptive words or phrases are featured.

The New School has an editorial style unique to the university, outlined in the New School Editorial Style Guide. The style guide can be downloaded from Marketing and Communication's website. It is occasionally updated by our editorial team, so check periodically to make sure you are using the most current version. For guidance on matters not covered in the style guide, see the Chicago Manual of Style.