91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ

Web writing 101

Background work

What is your organization all about? Why are you writing this, who are you writing for and what are you write about?

Status

91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ is one of Canada's best-known institutions of higher learning and one of the leading public universities in the world.

History

Founded in 1821, the 91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ welcomes brilliant and open minded students from over 150 countries.

Image

91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ is bold, past, present, future and eclectic.

Culture

91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ is an English university with a French-speaking and international audience.

Goals

Demonstrate:

  • Opportunities that open doors
  • Research that changes lives
  • Innovation that drives progress
  • Education that shapes future-ready students
  • Eclecticism that sparks creativity

Defining the text structure

Follow the inverted pyramid to present important info at the beginning and the "Five Ws" to structure your text:

Who

Prospective undergraduate students

What

Undergrad admissions deadlines

Where

Quebec CEGEPs, colleges and high schools students

When

Application for admission: March 1

Why

Inform students about the deadlines to submit their applications.

How

Online.

How much

$110.40

Knowing your users

Age

16-24

Gender

55% female, 45% male

Location

GMA (Greater Montreal Area), Quebec, Ottawa/Gatineau

Language

French, English

Competitors

Concordia University, University of Montreal, HEC Montréal, Université du Québec à Montréal

Interests on Facebook

Spotted: 91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ, MTL Blog, evenko, Coca-Cola, La Ronde, ConneriesQc, Spotted: STM, 1861, Narcity Québec

Keywords

Users will likely find your web pages through search engines. To optimize your texts for search engines (SEO), you need to use multiple relevant keywords.

apply, uapply, application, admission, requirements, deadline, ielts, english language proficiency, acceptance rate, gpa

What makes a good text

Your text should be:

Clear

Don't be vague. Go straight to the point.

Interesting

Adapt your tone and style and only keep the needed information.

Correct

Correct grammar and correct information.

Brief

Say more with fewer words. Point form is a good way to present information on the web. Also, avoid impersonal and passive forms.

Motivational

Add call to actions and objectives.

Useful

Make sure your text answers your users' needs.

Usable

Your users should be able to refer to your text.

Tangible

Do not hesitate to present facts and examples.

Thorough

Make sure users will find what they need and they won't have to search for hours.

Separate Meaning and Presentation

  • Follow heading hierarchy (H1-Title, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, Paragraph)
  • Do not use semantic tags to style your content
  • Use bold moderately to highlight important content
  • Prevent using CAPS TO HIGHLIGHT TEXT BECAUSE IT'S HARD TO READ AND IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING!
  • Never underline text if it's not a link. HTML links are underlined by default and users have users will be confused if you use underline for normal text.

Respect the "F-Shaped" pattern

Users read on the web following an "f-shaped" pattern and some elements are more important than others:

  1. Title
  2. Subtitles
  3. Beginning of a paragraph
  4. Text following an image
  5. Hyperlinks

Writing hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are both useful for indexation navigation. In order to optimize your text, make sure that your hyperlinks have a good descriptive label.

Labels like "click here" are inefficient and don't describe what content users will find by clicking a link.

Always include keywords and keep your labels short.

Other important HTML tags

<title>

This is the first thing that users will see on search engines. Keep it at maximum 10 keywords and 75 characters or less.

<meta description>

On Google, this is the text that will appear under the title. Should be a phrase or two for a total of about 150 characters.

Supporting resources

  • by Janet Mizrahi
  • by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice
  • by Éloïse Hardy
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