Style guide and tips for online sub-editors

ACCESSIBILITY. Websites are legally bound to make their content accessible to readers with disabilities. This includes design points such as using the right contrast for legibility but also sub's additions of image alt text on pictures that will be read out the visually impaired or dyslexic, for example. Find the W3C checklist here: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html

ASK 500 PEOPLE. http://www.ask500people.com A useful crowdsourcing tool for global surveys.

ATTRIBUTIONS. Needed more than ever in the fast-moving pace of online where information may be tracked from a wide variety of sources. Newsrooms are also moving towards a publish-then-filter model for some content, as well as including running accounts of some stories, so the many layers of checking that existed previously are being stripped away. Verification is not always possible, especially for breaking news, so attribute where possible for transparency. Readers can then weigh up the value of the information without the story being delayed. Not sure how this works for images. Creative Commons licences are increasingly common,though - see http://creativecommons.org/

BOMBAY. This recently switched to Mumbai as the favoured search term in the UK. Globally, Mumbai is the better known word.

CHECKS. Here's an online starter kit for subs needing to check spellings, facts and stats, and includes links to online dictionaries and conversion sites: http://subsstandards.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/top-10-checks-a-starter-kit-for-online-copy-editors/

CHUNK. A unit of copy that links to another related piece of copy. Also, copy that has been broken up into shorter pieces, eg, under a series of subheads. Useful for breaking up and repurposing print copy.

COMMENT. At the end of any article, the reader should be left with the option of taking some form of action, whether it be leaving their opinion in a comments box, responding to a poll or following a link for further information.

CONTENT. Differentiate between print and online by offering content that will not be available in print media. Encourage participation by offering readers the chance to provide feedback.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS). The platform used to upload and layout content for a website. Common systems, such as Wordpress and Squarespace dispense with the need to have extensive knowledge of HTML.

CORRECTIONS. Be aware that just overwriting an error is not enough to erase it. RSS feeds pick up newly published content and distribute it in an instant so errors are public and can cause long-lasting damage (eg, stock values have collapsed on the back of misleading info). Updated amends are not resent by RSS feeds. Associated Press has a useful take on news values, ethics and web corrections here: http://www.apme.com/news/news_values_statement.shtml.

CROWDSOURCING. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070731niles/ Kind of an 'Ask the audience' tool, more usually used for reporting. But you can also use the wisdom of crowds in checking - useful when it's not easy to track down a name. Try Googling different spelling options and the numbers will often tell you which is correct, eg: 22 million for McDonald's, 2 million for MacDonald's. Use with care. Also, if you have a social network built up on the likes of Twitter or Rypple, you can throw out the occasional crowdsourcing request for help with a headline, ideas for approaching content or posting a link and asking for feedback.

DATES. Content is archived on the internet so think of content as being always available rather than something that will be replaced by next month's issue. News sites will generally date their stories and any corrections. But for feature content, it may be better to avoid relative dates in copy. Ask: will this content still work in six month's time?

DICTIONARY. Try online Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com

GLOBAL. Readers can arrive from anywhere not just the UK. Watch for idioms, UK slang and think about including international alternatives when uploading more universal content, eg, sub-editors are known as copy editors in the US, laptops may be called notebooks, and let's not get started on mobile phones.

GOOGLE TRENDS http://www.google.com/trends A useful tool for checking the popularity of your keywords.

HEADLINES. Online headlines and page titles inform search engines, which then reward you with search traffic. Search engine bots do not rank for wit and wordplay so, until then, the SEO style is to be straightforward, factual and short. Include keywords, specific names or product models, full names, and concrete wording rather than abstract wordplay, then repeat them in the copy. Also keeping the characters to 40 characters or less makes RSS feeds, especially on mobile web devices, easier to read. Some sites include a more 'human' headline on opening pages then an SEO headline deeper in. For more on online headlines:

• How to write great headlines http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/how-to-write-great-headlines
• How to write magnetic headlines http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines
• How to write for the web (pt 1) http://www.journalism.co.uk/7/articles/532550.php
• This boring headline is written for Google http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/weekinreview/09lohr.html?pagewanted=all

Notice the search-friendly keywords of 'how to', 'headlines' and a superlative selling 'em in the first two links but the more human title of the NY Times story. The first three promise a tutorial, the last one an analysis - so you know what you're going to get just from the header.

HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE (HTML). The programing code at the heart of most webpages. As a sub using a CMS platform, you probably won't need to know much about it. Most likely to be encountered when forced to create links manually.

KEYWORDS. Simply the words that people would search for when looking for your content. Find out which are the most popular by inputting several options into Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends. The breakdown shows you which terms people are searching for, and where the terms are popular. Try inputting 'lose weight' and 'diet' - and you'll see quite a difference. Get them into headlines and page titles to boost your search engine ranking and to make your content more visible online. Search superlatives, such as best, funniest, greatest, latest, etc, are popular search keywords. As is 'review' for when people want product information. Also, don't just think keywords but keyphrases as here: http://www.copyblogger.com/do-keywords-in-post-titles-really-matter Repeat specific names or products in full rather than referring to 'it' or 'the [generic noun]'.

LINKS. Linking out is sometimes frowned upon as sending traffic away but stats suggest that there is a strong relationship between external links and receiving a boost to your incoming links. Publish only internal links and risk readers seeing your site as a dead end. Some more thoughts on linking out: http://www.seoco.co.uk/blog/2008/07/16/how-good-is-the-mainstream-media-at-linking-out

NAVIGATION. Check that the reader's journey through the content makes sense - sometimes sites are designed without much thought for the content. Check the links work. And that slow downloads aren't frustrating the reader.

PAGE TITLES. Check the page title or URL is optimised for search engines - headlines often form part of the URL. Ask the site manager to adapt your CMS for this, advises Patrick Beeson: http://patrickbeeson.com/blog/2007/oct/17/newspaper-seo-tips-effective-h

PLAGIARISM. Is on the increase thanks to the copy and paste button and the ease of finding information online. Lazywebs! If you suspect a writer has plagiarised copy, just post a suspect line into Google - and all will be revealed.

REPURPOSING Unless online content is commissioned specifically, repurposing copy used in print is a common task, especially as print deadlines occur much earlier. The good news is the copy will probably have been checked. The bad news is it won't be web-friendly and will need styling for keywords and SEO, scan-reading and chunking, and possibly pointing out to the commissioning editor that it doesn't work and needs additional content. As of Jan 2009, this probably applies more to mag or client subbing than news, which is increasingly being filed direct to web.

RHYMEZONE. http://www.rhymezone.com Rhymezone is great for rhymes, synonyms, similar sounding words, consonant matching words and so on – useful for triggering headline ideas.

SEO or SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION. Writing copy that is easily found and indexed by search engines boosts content higher up the search engine pages. Keywords help with this. Sites that are built in HTML are also more SEO-friendly and accessible than Flash sites, which turn copy into images that search engine bots can't read. But the Google algorithm, for example, also ranks content according to other factors, eg, it ranks sites with a large number of incoming links more highly, and also increasingly sites that link out. SEO is not an exact science and shifts as the search engine algorithms shift.

SPAMGLISH. Reuse of the same keyword in the hope of raising the Google ranking of a webpage. This practice is not effective and considered to be bad web etiquette.

TAGS. Most CMS platforms provide an option to add tags to any story published on the system. Tags can aid users in browsing through your content by using words that link to an index of stories associated with the same word or category. Similar to keywords, but used as part of a site's internal reference system. Useful, if you have a large content archive that reader's might otherwise have to spend a lot of time searching for related or relevant information.

TECHNORATI http://technorati.com A blog indexing and search service. Useful for searching blogosphere for interesting links. Can set up watchlists for your content area.

THESAURUS. Try online Thesaurus.com http://thesaurus.reference.com

THREADS. A 'thread' is the specific conversation that follows from an initial topic, question or discussion starter being posted on a discussion board or other online multi-user forum. In most websites, a thread is displayed as a series of replies to the orginal posting, although more technologically sophisticated discussion platforms and content management systems like Drupal http://drupal.org/ (and blog commenting systems like Disqus http://disqus.com/ and coComment http://www.cocomment.com/) also allow specific replies-within-the-replies, which gives the discussion a more comprehendable human shape in the online setting. In a thread with many contributors, it's an improvement to be able to reply to subsequent contributors, rather then just the original post!

TONE. The web is generally more conversational in tone so it can be difficult to escape print styles when first moving over to online feature content. Sentences are shorter, paragraphs too. The second person narrative is common, addressing readers directly. Think about rewriting for tone when repurposing content for web. Here's a tip: http://subsstandards.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/re-styling-print-copy-into-web-conversation/

WEB STYLE. A cheat sheet for web style by online journalist/educator Mindy McAdams: http://www.macloo.com/webwriting/index.htm

WEB USABILITY. Website design is almost (if not equally) as important as the quality of website content. Site visitors need to be able to read and use content effectively after it has been written. A definition of Web Usability is provided here.

WIKIPEDIA http://www.wikipedia.org A free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. A useful first port of call for information but the editable nature of a wiki means that its pages are open to spammers and vandals. Check back to the source - there is usually a reference section at the bottom of the page that will lead to more trustworthy sites for verifying. That said, some outlets are attributing quoted sources to Wikipedia so readers can understand where the info has come from. Paul Bradshaw of the Online Journalism Blog suggests Googling 'mistake + name of person' as a sub's check.