http://www.writeyness.com Tue, 13 May 2008 21:56:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Sadly, despite the obvious importance of the words on your business website (see this previous post) many people think they can stick some copy and content up themselves. Often at the last minute. And usually with very frustrating results. This is backed up by the experience of Flyte web development company ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/06/01/content-creation-doesnt-have-to-be-a-pain/ All I want for Christmas is a blanket with sleeves. Luckily, The Slanket ("The Loungin' Blanket") is exactly that. And it's proof that the best ideas are the simplest ones. The Slanket creator, Gary Clegg, was hunkered down in his student dorm room one night, wrapped up in his sleeping bag watching ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/05/28/the-slanket-a-product-for-generation-zzzzz/ In the new edition of the classic "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser, the author updates his introduction to tackle the growth of online communications. This quote stands out: "Millions of email messages every day give people the information they need to do their job, and a badly written message can do ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/05/24/the-new-age-for-all-its-electronic-wizardy-is-still-writing-based/ East Stirling, bottom of the Scottish Third Division, may be the worst football team in Scotland, but no other professional sports club's website (that I've seen anyhow) can touch The Shire's site at www.eaststirlingshire.com. Even if the team only get a couple of people and their dogs on match days, ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/05/13/best-sports-team-website/ When I started as an 18-year-old trainee reporter at The Dundee Courier with dreams of uncovering corruption at the highest levels of Government (a la All The President's Men), I was told that readers should be able to get the main points of a story just by reading the headline ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/05/10/writing-for-the-web-think-newspaper-not-novel/ I once worked a couple of shifts as a sub-editor on the sports desk of The Scotsman newspaper in their swanky new offices in Edinburgh (steps south of the new Scottish Parliament money pit / architectural wonder, and west of the craggy, er, Crags). "Subbing" involves pulling a news story ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/05/08/web-copy-leaner-than-a-butchers-dog/ As I mentioned in a previous post, headlines are important. And it's interesting to see how traditional news outlets handle the unique challenges posed by the Web. Many, such as The Guardian, will put a factual, to-the-point, more Web-friendly headline on the main page, and use a longer, more detailed, ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/05/03/stolen-painting-found-by-tree/ One of my must-read websites for keeping up to date with things from a layman's point of view is The Guardian's technology section: Guardian Online. Here are a couple of good resources in their archives: Series of well-written "How to..." guides on everything from podcasting to RSS feeds. A look at the people ... http://www.writeyness.com/2007/01/16/guardian-online-keeping-up-to-date-with-internet-marketing-trends/ Search Engine Land is the new venture of Search Engine guru Danny Sullivan. There are a couple of excellent posts on the blog just now looking at two issues relevant to any website looking to improve their search engine rankings: Google's Tips On Duplicate Content Worries looks at how Google views duplicate ... http://www.writeyness.com/2006/12/27/googles-views-on-duplicate-content-and-linking/ The Guardian has published a list of their most useful websites of 2006 -- The new 100 most useful sites. It's interesting to compare this list to their previous one in 2004 -- Cream of the crop: 100 most useful websites. They rightly point out (taking the UK-view, as a British newspaper): "In ... http://www.writeyness.com/2006/12/21/the-most-useful-websites-on-the-internet/