FAQ - General Writing
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Generally speaking, we want articles written in AP style. Third person, factual articles that do not rely on relating personal experiences for the content.
Unlike other sites, we will happily publish relevant photographs, drawings, sidebars, links and other information that will make our site stand out from the pack.
We want good SEO. Tags, links, keywords and key phrases.
The writers style is important of course, and we won't deny that.
Article lengths will vary according to need. Staying tightly focused on the topic is also important.
How an article is organized determines how easily it is read. Good formatting and organization can make or break an entire series of articles. Too many of these and the site becomes irrelevant.
Speaking of irrelevant, did I ever mention my Aunt Fiona who was a writer herself way back in 1901? She wrote about....
Yeah. Relevance. It's a big deal and if you don't stay on topic, the reader soon departs.
Photographs
Preferably, photographs are linked in from another site as long as they don't exceed 500 pixels in width or height (500 x 500). Larger than that and formatting becomes a problem. Also, they should be larger than 200 x 200. The .png format is preferred, but .jpg will work as well.
Photos that are larger or smaller should be resized to fit these requirements. We can upload some photos, but at first, we're going to have to be diligent about getting photos resized and loaded on photo hosting sites and linking to them. Eventually of course, we'd like to have it all here.
Photos to be published must have publishable rights. Creative commons with attribution or something similar. Sites that require the photos be linked are fine, as long as they meet the size requirements. All photos must credit the photographer.
Drawings and Illustrations
These should be your own work or licensed through creative commons or similar license. As long as it is OK to publish for commercial purposes, we're good. The preferred size is greater than 200 x 200 and smaller than 500 x 500. Of course, if you need more to get your point across, there is always the exception to the rule. Exceptions will require approval.
Drawings and illustrations must credit the artist. Again, storage on another site is preferred but we'll do what we can.
Sidebars
Whoa! Did they say sidebars? Well of course we did. Sidebars are perfect for adding pertinent information to content, that adds to credibility or to the oomph of an article. Things like, "The author is a certified nutologist with thirty years of experience picking, eating and burning filberts." OK so that was a joke but you see what we mean. That way, you don't have to include that in the article. It's an article aside, about an article without being a part of it.
Links
Well of course we want links. Mostly to other stuff on our site. But also include links, especially in the beginning to offsite content. Links at the end and within the content should take the form of text with the actual URL hidden within the link. A hyperlink in other words.
Get back links for us. If you've got a blog somewhere and want to point readers at your stuff, then of course do that. Post links both ways.
If you write about the Lions Club in Your Town USA, include a link to their website. And then ask them for a link back to ours on their website. Point out that it will improve both our page-ranks and link juice. Any organization associated with your article is a prime candidate for linking to and asking for back links back to us. Just try to make sure they don't already link back to us. Multiple requests will probably not go over well.
SEO
SEO involves several factors.
Tags, which are associated with an article and contain clues to its content. Sometimes called metatags. These are similar to keywords but are added outside the article in special HTML fields. Don't worry, you don't have to do that part, you just enter them in on a form and the site software takes care of it.
Links to relevant information elsewhere. Preferably to other websites that contain similar, but different information. Getting those sites to link back to us is the real juicer and helps bring the bucks.
Keywords and Phrases
These are relevant words and phrases that the search engine is going to find when it crawls an article. They relate back to the meta tags as well, which improves search engine ranking. You want a certain density of them, but not so dense the article reads well. Don't substitute a keyword for a pronoun just to use a keyword.
Author Style
Yes, we do want AP style writing, but that doesn't mean your writing should not have its own style. We encourage authors to develop and use their own voice and style, as long as it is third person and doesn't rely on relating personal experience for content. Examples should be generic.
Length
We're sorry to say, but size matters. Here on the Internet, we need to be quick and to the point. There are two objectives here. Put the information in front of the reader so it is easily seen. If we don't have the information on that page, give them a link to another of our pages close and in their face so they stay on our pages. That is so important.
The best articles are going to be in the range of 350 to 600 words. If it really needs 700, then by all means go for it. But we need to watch the size or we lose readers.
Organization
Keep the article organized. If it is a how-to article, use actionable steps. Be specific. Some articles will do better with bullets. Others need subheads. Still others need numbered lists.
Oh, and did I mention there will be Italics, underlines and bolds? How silly to not include those things. Use them according to our style guides, not because you want to emphasize a certain word.
Relevance
Keep articles on topic. Remember, you only have 350-600 words to work with in most cases. If you need more than that, it should probably be split up into separate articles. It will for sure get split up into separate pages.
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