Technology X Tomorrow's Technology Today!
BEWARE OF SPELLING MISTAKES
Ensure that your title makes sense and there are no spelling mistakes. In the case of search engines, a simple spelling mistake can remain in search engines for years, potentially losing you thousands of readers who immediately question site credibility. Believe it or not, there are those that scour the internet seeking content errors that they will gladly bring to your attention seconds after post. We can relate to this with another site example where a two page letter was received that explained the importance of it’s rather than ‘its’. The letter concluded with the author stating they now found themselves returning to our site only to seek out further err in our work.
ARTICLE LENGTH
A posted article may be a simple three line opinion, a single page information release, or even a detailed 12 page report. It is important to consider article length prior to putting pen to paper as you may want to include pagination where the content is separated into sections and placed amongst several pages. As an example seen here, we used the first page as an introduction where we spoke of the hardware’s background, specifications and components. The next few pages encompasses the body, or are testing, with the final being our ‘Report Analysis and Final thoughts’.
As your site grows, you may be so fortunate as to be rewarded with advertising and it is important that your advertisers be seen. As our ‘best practice’, we like to ensure that all advertisers, or advertising spots, can be seen as the reader follows through the article, unless brevity is absolutely necessary. Again using The SSD Review, one can observe how our page lengths have been standardized through the number of advertisers on the right side bar. This length is one which we hope to remain consistent with both the SSD Review and Technology X.
ARTICLE STRUCTURE
We have unintentionally spoken to this above but believe the understanding of typical writing elements can, not only assist in your readers enjoyment of the article but also, help with search results as well as gaining reader interest with search engine results.
To keep things as simple as possible, always ensure your article has an introduction, body and conclusion:
- INTRODUCTION – At very least, we believe an introduction of a few paragraphs has the power to grab the interest of the reader and keep it. Most importantly, the first two lines will most likely appear in Google search results and this is your opportunity to lure readers in. With this in mind, we need to ensure that we tell the reader the purpose of the article and then find a way to get their attention. Consider the example of a search result that states this ‘Although we have been in the business for several years now, our expectation of what we today.’ This could be a Google introduction of an article found on the web. Does it tell you anything? Does it make you want to select that article in any way?
- BODY – This is where we tell our story and build upon what we have already started. In many cases, the best one can do is to start writing as you think. Don’t overthink and don’t correct yourself until the thought is out. Just let it flow and, only when the story has been told do you return to polish the final product. For some of us who have always just said it like it is, this is a very easy thing to do. Unfortunately for most that have become so used to properly forming their thoughts however, this is not a natural practice and may take some time. Another consideration for the body is its length and whether it may be wise to create headings and to layout the format of multi-page, if used;
- CLOSING – We prefer to give this its own page whenever possible because, in the case of analysis or report, many readers simply want to know the authors recommendation and reasoning. Your summation is another excellent chance to get even those readers back into the body of the document where the meat should be. Writers should understand that the summation is also the most vital element to achieving credibility and return readers.
AVOID GENERALITIES
Using general terms within articles is not good and two perfect examples are found with words such as ‘some’ or ‘lots’. Perhaps the best way to explain this is through the reader’s view where, especially in technical articles, the reader needs to be able to accept the writer as a credible source. The only way the author can achieve that credibility is by writing to the point and specific.
DON’T BE TOO TECHNICAL
This was addressed briefly throughout however, the importance of not being too technical cannot be overlooked. We attribute the success of the SSD Review to just this where a person new to solid state drive technology can arrive at the site and learn about SSDs at a level that is easily understood and enjoyable. Once again, we suggest writing as it is thought and as one might normally speak, avoiding words that the average person would not know.