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Content Strategy for the web: Going beyond the inverted pyramid

Posted by Janine Warner - December 16, 2012 - Content Strategy, Tutorials, Web Design

How to use this journalist’s insider trick to optimize your website

The first thing that good reporters are taught in journalism school is that it is absolutely essential to prioritize and organize the information that you are about to impart to your audience. Generations of reporters have learned how to use a simple mental visual technique known as “The Inverted Pyramid” to reach out and grab the audience, and then hook them into reading the rest of their content.

I’ve updated this newsroom classic to cover the changes to storytelling that have been brought on by the internet. As you can see in the illustration below, that means putting the most important information at the top of your story and then adding supporting and related information after that. To update the Inverted Pyramid, I added the second, smaller pyramid to the bottom of this image, representing our ability to add links and multimedia to a written story to broaden the base for those who want to learn more.

An inverted pyramid + links and multimedia

Here are a few other tips from journalism school that will serve you well as you create content for the web:

  • Get attention with a strong lead (a journalism term for the first paragraph, although real journalists deliberately misspell it as “lede” to differentiate it from, say, the heavy silvery metal that blocks radiation)
  • Limit each paragraph or content package to one idea
  • Use each paragraph to invite the audience to read the next paragraph
  • Remember that the audience may stop reading/watching at any time

That last point is not new. Many people say you should write shorter on the web because people don’t read online.

I disagree. Some people read a lot, long form journalism is making a come back, but most of us skim text whether we read it on paper or online. That’s why the Inverted Pyramid is so important — online and off.

Do you have what it takes to be a Content Strategist?

Janine’s latest course, Developing an Effective Content Strategy for Your Website is online at Lynda.com. If you take Janine’s course on content strategy, you’ll discover:

  • What it takes to be a content strategist
  • Why it’s such a hot new job category
  • The hard science behind doing a content inventory
  • How to use a  content matrix to manage and produce content
  • How to strategically assess your content to see where you have glaring holes – or where you have repetitive content that repeats itself, over and over again (like that)
  • …and so much more

Get a free 7-day trial subscription to Lynda.com by visiting http://www.lynda.com/trial/JanineWarner

Link to Janine’s Google+ Profile

content strategy, inverted pyramid, web content, writing for the web

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