As a web design and strategy specialist, I spend a lot of my time setting up websites and putting content into content management systems.
While this task isn’t generally the most difficult thing in the world, it can sometimes be tedious if the content is formatted incorrectly. It also bugs me to see other content on the web formatted poorly when taking just a little extra time can make a massive difference.
You can have a great website design and fast web hosting (which you can read about in our hosting comparison guide), but if you mismanage your content formatting, your website will struggle to succeed.
So, I thought, “Hey, why not make a rap video giving people advice about how to format their content? That would get the attention of today’s youth!” After all, they don’t call me the “Spittin’ Fire Rapper” for nothing.
Use headings to make your sections stand out / Not bold text, leavin’ search engines with doubt
In HTML, headings are critically important. There are tags made especially for them, starting with <h1> and moving down to <h6> as the hierarchy decreases.
Often times while drafting up content in a word processor, we’re tempted to simply highlight the title of our section and change it to bold. While this helps separate the title from the rest of the copy to our eyes, it isn’t helpful to search engines or to vision-impaired visitors using screen readers.
Instead, change the format of the line you wish to be your heading to Heading 2 or Heading 3 (using <h2> or <h3> in HTML). Keep the bold function handy to sparingly emphasize specific portions of text in the body copy.
While you’re at it, be sure to only use a single level-one heading (<h1>) per page—which is typically reserved for the main page title. Search engine crawlers use this <h1> tag to identify the primary topic of your page. If you have a bunch of <h1> tags, it dilutes the focus of your SEO structure.
Using headings in your word processor while drafting content makes publishing it properly so much easier. When copying everything over, the text editor for your website’s content management system will automatically convert those headings to the proper HTML tags.
Make ‘em shout with that first paragraph you write / And with all of your content, keep it concise!
Search engines rely heavily upon the first paragraph of each of your pages to determine the subject and context of your page. If your page’s title, main heading, and first paragraph all share common, natural keywords, search engines can more accurately index your page for relevant search queries.
That’s what I mean by good content. If you’re trying to make your content searchable and discoverable by your target audience, make sure you get straight to the point in the first paragraph. Why dillydally?
The second part of this section is about concise content. Most of us would agree that visiting a website with a novel’s worth of text crammed together is both frustrating and tough on the eyes.
When writing for the web, try to keep one main idea to a paragraph. We have paragraphs for a reason; they help to visually separate our thoughts. In a fast-paced digital world, it’s important to stay concise and deliver your information in digestible, structured layouts.
When you list some things, please do it correctly / Use the proper tags, and it will work perfectly
Here’s another writing tip: use real ordered (numbered) or unordered (bulleted) lists!
In HTML, lists are represented by the <ol> tag (for lists with numbers) and the <ul> tag (for lists with bullets), with individual items wrapped in <li> tags:
<ul>
<li>List item 1</li>
<li>List item 2</li>
<li>List item 3</li>
</ul>
When you want to make a list in your content, use the list function in your editor. If your content management system is working as it should, it will transfer those lists automatically into the correct HTML tags.
Writing plain hyphens or numbers manually instead of using real list elements makes the content harder to parse for screen readers and search engines, and it takes extra time to clean up later.
Remember, world: Do your writin’ right / So ‘til next time, I’m done rapping for now
Yeah, I’m not actually a professional rapper. But I’ve exhausted what lyrical talent I do have for the time being.
Next time, I’ll talk about properly using images on your websites. I’ll also tell you how to properly use one of the most powerful tools in the history of the internet: hyperlinks.
Thanks for tuning in.