Web Writing :The World Wide Web is Your Oyster

Course tutor: Frances Booth

Course length: 6 weeks

Course suitable for : This course is suitable for those who want to write for the web for business, their own website or blog, or as a journalist. Perhaps you have traditionally written for print media and want to expand your reach. Perhaps you know a bit about the web but are keen to dive in and make better use of it. Perhaps you have a business or personal website and feel the tone of the writing could be tailored more to the web.

The only requirement is a good standard of written English.

Teaching will be through a series of six lessons, classroom work, discussion, and exercises.

When the course finishes you will have chance to go away and spend time preparing one final piece. This will then be edited for you by Frances.  

Aims of the course

By the end of the course you will:

- Be more confident navigating and writing for the web
- Understand the difference between writing for print and writing for the web
- Understand the importance of linking
- Know what SEO is and be able to optimise your content
- Be able to blog
- Be able to improve your social profile and make use of social media networking sites such as Twitter
- Understand more about user behaviour on the web
- Be able to target your audience
- Know where and when to share your writing
- Write for the web!

Course Syllabus:

Week 1: Welcome to web writing
Or: I’ve got something to say to the www
• Understand how writing for the web differs to writing for print
• Get your sentences in shape
• Learn what kind of writing does well on the web, and why
• Know how web readers behave

Week 2: SEO
Or: Where is that excellent piece of content I was looking for…?
• Learn what SEO is
• Understand why optimised content gets more readers
• Start to analyse search trends
• Optimise your content

Week 3: Links
Or: Six degrees of separation
• Understand what makes a good link, learn how to build one
• Know why users expect links on the web, and why the medium suits sharing
• Recognise what kind of content you should link to for an increase in traffic
• Understand why linking benefits your web writing and makes readers come back

Week 4: Blogging
Or: Welcome to my world
• Think about tone in blog writing
• Learn how to set up a blog
• Learn ways to boost your writing profile
• Define and target your market of readers

Week 5: Social media profile
Or: Here I am, here I am again
• Think about how Twitter, facebook and LinkedIn can be used as a writer
• Begin using social media tools to connect with sources
• Understand the importance of networking for writers in today’s society
• Find out how your writing has been responded to/shared and learn ways to promote your work

Week 6: The future
Or: And so to the web
• Recap
• Further study of topics students have expressed interest in learning more about 
• Option to become part of a web writing course network 
• Further reading list and links

After the course
Professional edit of one piece of your work (up to 3 months after course ends)

For more information and start dates email