Articles and notes
Web editor: Tips and tools
22 November 2007
See more in newspapers, websites.
The following sites and applications have made my life easier producing and managing web content:
Tips
Writing for the web
Headlines may be seen alone either in section lists, search results, RSS feeds, or displayed on external sites; they need to tell the story alone and engage the reader to click. More here: www.useit.com/alertbox/9606.html, webdesignfromscratch.com/writing_for_the_web, and www.poynter.org.
There isn't always time to re-edit print headlines and copy for the the web, but try and pick specific stories that would benefit from adding a place, name or relevant keyword.
Date in context
Stories in the newspaper often have today, tomorrow or last week, but for articles that will live online potentially forever, context is sometimes needed, e.g. 'The event will take place tomorrow (October 18)', or 'the accident happened last Thursday (October 11)'.
Interaction
Keep a text file handy with email addresses, key phrases and links for quickly adding to relevant stories and pages to encourage interaction and feedback to the site.
Linking to other sources and websites
If you have several stories based around one main article, interlink them, making the main article the focus of all the associated content. e.g. tinyurl.com/yu6ttz.
There's nothing wrong with linking to external sites (it is one of the principals of the World Wide Web!) if the information is relevant to an article and likely to be helpful to the user, it will offer a better user experience, which should enhance your reputation as a news and information source. e.g. Council documents, national organisations, background information – remember to test supplied web addresses!
When describing another website, you visit a website, you don't 'log on', you might login if you have registered (a widely-used misconception).
When encouraging users to email, don't make the link text 'click here', this is poor accessibility and usability.
Link text should tell the user what they are doing and encourage an action, e.g. 'click here to email our news team' or 'send us a comment'. Using more words also increases the link area for better accessibility
Tools (All free!)
For playing, edit or converting multimedia content
Audacity - Quickly record, convert, clean and edit audio [audacity.sourceforge.net] and output as mp3 using the LAME (lame.sourceforge.net] encoder. Get a tutorial at geeks.com/techtips.
Convert audio, video, image and document files at www.zamzar.com or mediaconverter.org.
Screen grabs: FastStone Capture is a simple screen grab tool with many advanced tools for cropping, editing and adding captions etc. ideal for creating web ready photos for editorial articles and quick graphics [Get the last free version 5.3: aplusfreeware.com; a tutorial: faststone.org.
Fauxto ('like Photo') is a free online Photoshop alternative that has many of PS's image editing tools and features www.fauxto.com.
Del.icio.us – Save and tag bookmarks online for reading or sharing later (note: they will also be live for anyone to see by default!), from any computer with net access, handy for useful articles, tutorials, software or local websites worth listing/getting in touch with. Visit: del.icio.us
Organise and manage projects and milestones with others with Basecamp www.basecamphq.com, or keep simple to-do lists with Remember The Milk www.rememberthemilk.com.
Many sites now have RSS news feeds, you can keep related local or subject based feeds together by getting a customisable page like: www.google.com/ig, netvibes.com and also (although I've only briefly tried it) pageflakes.com.
Transfer large files without having to clog up email accounts with www.senduit.com, files can be available for a few hours or up to a week.
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