The following are the workshop notes for a presentation I gave recently to Portland Community College’s Technical Writing class. The topic was on web writing and writing for the web.

The main topics I covered in the workshop included:

• Web platforms
  • Web publishing
  • Online personas
• Writing for the Web
  • Web writing structure and format
  • Myths and Facts
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Demographics
  • Writing for your audience

Terminology

The following are terms and jargon used in blogging and social media.

• Blogging: Publishing on the web through websites (blogs) and social media. Facebooking and Twitter are blogging, specifically microblogging.
• Photoblogging: Publishing photography and words on the web through websites and social media.
• Vlogging: Publishing video on the web.
• Podcasting: Publishing scheduled and syndicated multimedia content on the web.
• Social Media: Online marketing and community building.
• SEO: (Search Engine Optimization) The process of making a site search engine friendly through code and content. Modern term for developing a site for search engine attention and distribution, aka marketing.
• Web Publishing: Publishing on the web, sharing multimedia content in the virtual community.
• Syndication: The distribution of content on the web through feeds.
• Blog: A blog is a website with content displayed in reverse chronological order.

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