Domain developers and bloggers now have a resource – The Yahoo! Style Guide. TechCrunch, Mashable and numerous other web sites are reporting the news.
According to Yahoo!, “Polished and expanded for its public debut, “The Yahoo! Style Guide” covers the basics of grammar and punctuation plus a multitude of topics with a Web-specific focus. Yahoo! editors discuss effective writing and editing for an online audience, techniques for streamlining copy, basic Web codes, Internet law, search engine optimization.”
The Yahoo! Style Guide
The style guide has 19 Chapters that cover a range of web topics ranging from SEO basics to writing engaging email and newsletters. A quick glance at the website and you’ll notice the information seems straightforward and obvious. It may be good advice for both new and experienced web developers and bloggers.
The site offers good explanations for topics that seem mysterious to many, like SEO.
Here are a few excerpts from the website,
People usually click the links on the first page of results, so sites at the top of the list are more likely to get visitors. And more visitors can mean more page views, more leads, more sales, more ad revenue, and other business benefits.
Search engines and people both like:
Verbosity. In the search engine world, verbosity means substantial, relevant, original content. Do fill your page with words, but write succinctly: Make sure that every word you write is relevant to your audience and to the topic you’re addressing.
Good writing. To a search engine, good writing means using variations of your keywords, including those with different endings. For example, if you are targeting the phrase job interview, use the singular, plural, -ing, and -ed forms, such as job interviews and job interviewing.
In the style guide, Yahoo! even takes you through the steps of optimizing a fictional site in Chapter 17.
You can buy the style guide everywhere books are sold starting July 6 and you can order it online now at sites like Amazon.