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What Does It Take To Write Like A Journalist

Lesson 19 from: SEO Copywriting: Optimize Your Website Copy

Sarah Gordon

What Does It Take To Write Like A Journalist

Lesson 19 from: SEO Copywriting: Optimize Your Website Copy

Sarah Gordon

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Lesson Info

19. What Does It Take To Write Like A Journalist

Lesson Info

What Does It Take To Write Like A Journalist

are you ready to start writing in this chapter? We look at how you can hold simple journalistic techniques to make your content sing. It's not rocket science. If you read a newspaper or news website and analyze how they write their articles, you will see each piece works as an inverted pyramid at the top is all the most important information you need and then other, less important information is added in. As you go down the page, journalists always try to ask the who, what, where, when and why In the first paragraph or two, the easy way to think of it is if you had a piece of news and you were running into a pub to share it with everyone, what would you blurt out the most important fact, whether it is the Queen is dead or Manchester United won the Champions League, that's how journalists look at news stories. Take a look at this front page from the Sun tabloid newspaper in the UK, Published in 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, it may have a creative headline, A sea of white flags. Stil...

l, the first paragraph gives you all the information you need to know. 10,000 Iraqi troops surrendered last night as allied tanks stormed to the outskirts of Kuwait City, it tells you what happened, where it happened, why it happened and who was involved All in just 17 words. When it comes to your website, it's not that different. Your readers are busy people and you need to grab their attention and show them you have their solution from the first word. Remember that statistic about them spending an average of just 45 seconds on the website. You want to address their problem, explain how you solve it, who you are, what you offer that's different. And then give them a chance to take action with a button that allows them to buy, make a booking or request a quote. Then other information comes further down the page to develop your message, take a look at this website for sunny resort in Greece. The first sentence you read is a world class luxury holiday destination featuring five award winning hotels nestled in a peaceful 1000 acre ecological reserve surrounded by magnificent pine forests, crystal clear waters and endless golden beaches. There isn't any doubt about what you can expect from this resort. There are more tips you can take from the world of journalism to make it easier to write your website content just like in journalism for your site. You don't want to use long and complicated words. You shouldn't be making a customer work hard to access your information And you never want them to feel ignorant. The average UK newspaper has a reading age of about 12 to 14 years old And in the US they're written in 11th grade level. This is because newspapers no, they can't challenge readers too much with difficulty otherwise they'll just stop reading. It's the same for you to make your customers feel welcome, make your content easy to read and understand with a clear flow of information and everything they need to know at the top of the page before they have the chance to jump to another site. Always remember how busy your target audience is and what a privilege it is to have them spend precious time reading your website. So let's make it easy for them. Shall we take a look at the Asana Project management website? It has a way of always making things sound simple and showing how it is solving a problem for a consumer, without going into the nitty gritty details using techie language or relying on jargon. Work on big ideas without the busy work. From the small stuff to the big picture. Asana organizes work so teams know what to do, why it matters and how to get it done. This simplicity continues down the page with the next section. Stay organized and connected. Bring your teams work together in one shared space, choose the project view that suits your style and collaborate. No matter where you are, this means that it doesn't matter whether it is the IT department, the Ceo or the busy assistant researching the best project management sites to use in the office. Everyone will understand instantly what Asana is offering. So can you write like a journalist. Now give it a try yourself, take a look at exercise two in your course materials and try writing the introductory paragraph to your website. Remember it's the first thing your customer will see, so you want to make sure it gives them all the information they need. Once you've nailed that, let's look at creating a customer journey.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Exercise 1
Exercise 2
Course Notes

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