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Web Word Wizardry A Net-Savvy Writing Guide
$11.95
Amazon. com Review
“Good Web writing needs to be like soda pop or champagne,” says Rachel McAlpine in Web Word Wizardry: “crystal clear and fizzy. ” But engaging prose isn’t enough. Web writing needs to be straightforward (”the enigmatic, provocative, cryptic, poetic, ironic, or witty heading is wasted on the Web,” she confides) but not bland. To instill trust in the reader, it must be both personal and professional. McAlpine, a trainer and consultant in online content, addresses everything here from alt-text and source code to doorway pages and link popularity. She discusses the differences between writing for the Web and writing for intranets (private Internet systems used by large organizations). She warns against long domain names, italics, and flags as language indicators. And she devotes a considerable amount of space to the fine art of customizing pages of your Web site for specific search engines. After all, who cares how brilliant your site is, if no one can find it? –Jane Steinberg
Review
Potent advice for the World’¬?s wannabe Webbies. Chicago Tribune.
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Writing for the Internet is very different from writing a novel or an article. A reader tends to skim the page looking for words of interest and if they don’t find what they want then it is easy to just click an link or hit a search engine and go to another page that might be of interest. In Web Word Wizardry the author leads the reader through the snares and pitfalls of writing for the Web in a style that demands attention and is directed towards a goal – getting the reader to actually examine the page. By far the most comprehensive book that I have seen on this subject, Rachel McAlpine works through not only Web Pages but also writing and style for Ezines, writing for Search Engines, using Keywords and similar items. She ends the book with a checklist for Meta Tags, Title Tag, Description, Body Copy, Links, Optimization, Micro Content, Skim-Reading, Clarity, Adapting for the Web, Credibility, and Profitability. The checklists are well worth the price of the book by themselves. With plenty of examples throughout the book it is clear and concise and a valuable reference to onyone designing a web site, Ezine or other Internet communication medium. If you want your site to be professional and user friendly then use this book as a magnifying glass to evaluate your site. Highly recommended.
The book’s title and editorial review are terribly misleading. This book is not about writing copy or online content, contrary to how it sounds. Nonetheless, the book is clearly written, and might even prove helpful to the right audience. The right audience would be anyone “brand spanking new” to the ways of the web, with little to no knowledge of page design and usability. Yes, page design and usability–like I said, this book is not about writing content. I was hoping for a “best practices” guide with some examples of good and bad text. There are 30 to 40 pages of text devoted to this topic. Another 40 to 50 pages are devoted to usability concerns–please note that these have been adpated directly from some well-known usability authors like Jakob Nielsen and Steven Krug, known to be at opposite ends of the usability spectrum!Another 50 to 60 pages were devoted to search engine placement. Again, nothing earth shattering. If you’ve been exposed to the web, and have some basic knowledge about the innerworkings of engines, the tips won’t add any value. Anohter 20 to 30 pages on misc. topics like what businesses might do well on the web. About 50 pages of pure fluff–I guess a sub-200-page book wasn’t acceptable? At the end of the book are some useful checeklists. All-in-all, the content of the book is good for newcomers to the web, but I’m thoroughly disappointed that the text matches neither the title nor the description.
I purchased this book with the intention of improving my ability to write for the internet. I was disapointed to discover there was very little coverage of writing copy for the web. Much of the book covered outdated search engine optimization techniques. Avoid this book if you want to learn how to write online copy.