Writing for the Web

Kim Brown and Christy West of The Horse spoke on freelancing this morning.

Freelancers need to be versatile!

Research a potential employer before you contact them. There is more than understanding the story--must broaden coverage. You need to think for Web, what about advertisers, can you do video & photos?

Think "outside box". Consider white papers and how they apply to advertisers and editorial.

Think about other sources and how they could give you an idea for another magazine. Researcher happy to get info out; you have chance to get to other pubs.

News still sells. 150-300 words (not 2,000 word feature article, for the most part). Horse.com puts up six news stories/day. They have good budget for freelancers. Look at what they cover and think about an idea that might work for them.

Not big chunks of money--and spend quite a bit of time doing them, but can repurpose.

Even with great idea, need to offer more than story--blog (I just wrote cool article for Paint Horse Journal, coming in July), and editor will love you. Free advertising and marketed yourself! Now you have become ad reps, photog, writers and marketers.

Web vs. Print: Different world! Language is different. Keep "key words in mind." More than 90 percent of people don't go past 1st page to search results.

Title tags--primary keywords or brand name first, followed by others. Some of terms are esoteric and people don't know how to spell. Used acronyms. Not necessarily a good thing--people may not search for acronym.

Keyword relevance--how closes do keywords on the the page match the user's search terms. If search term not in story enough, not rank.

Get article popularity up--SHORT, SWEET, ENGAGING, ORGANIZED, TO THE POINT!

Reviewed content--gets reviewed by people who didn't write and were not a source for the article. Make sure it is accurate. If they are happy with article, reviewer will spread word. Free marketing!

Make sure keywords are the ones that will result in most search results. Example: founder and laminitis.

Go to tweetvolume and searched for different words--horse, laminitis, volume. Founder is a hotter word than laminitis.

Go to adwords.google.com/select/keywordtoolexternal--looked up same words. founder has 800k, laminitis only 40k. Founder looks like hot tip!

But--check out www.google.com/trends--shows popular stories driving trends. Founder does not actually come up as applied to horses!

Horse founder and horse laminitis--not such a clear winner. There is more for laminitis.

Which do you use--take advantage of all of that searching! If there is one clear, USE IT!

Keyword placement--use topic in headline and 1st few graphs of story. Later graph as it works out, but not overstuffing.

NO--Poll: Majority of TheHorse.com Readers vaccinate against WNV
YES--Vaccinating Against West Nile Virus: Poll Shows Horse Owners Say Yes

NO-Do Tapeworms Cause Colic
YES-Do Tapeworms Cause Horse Colic

Any story thinking about in print--cut in half and hit key words.

Provide additional info for Web stories. You only have 300 words. Link to other sources--not competitors, but related articles, university research, etc. And make sure it's actual Web address--hotlink may go away in editing.

Whole package! If source mentions photos, get them. It may not get more money if it's not your photo, but you will get brownie points.

You don't need a great camera and spend a ton on money--writing for the Web needs low res photos. Decent digital camera--even point & shoot--can handle photo and video needs you have.