Writing for the Web
 
 
This exercise is designed to get you thinking about the words and phrases people use to search for web pages.

Search for "Lake Macquarie" using the Google web search engine. Look at the first ten results "hits":
  1. What are the three top ranking web sites found?
  2. Did you find the web sites you expected to find?
  3. How many of the sites found were "official" ones from government or respected private organizations?
  4. Are there any surprising results?
  5. Are there any which should not be there?
  6. How would you increase the ranking of your web site, so it came earlier in the list?
  7. What other words do you think people might search for the topic with (official more technical or slang terms)?
Conduct the same search using the Kartoo visual meta search service. Read the Kartoo Help text to familiarize yourself with the service:
  1. What are the three top ranking web sites found?
  2. How many are the same as found by the Google search?
  3. What are the three most important words found linking documents?
  4. How might you use these words in your web pages?
Look at the following Tag Cloud for the Lake Macquarie Council news:


australia (10) awareness (10) aims (13) author visit (10) bank account (9) boyce (6) budget (8) city website (5) charlestown (4) chemicals (4) convict (6) daring (10) draft management plan (12) dp (2) direct debit (2) disability (3) development planning (1) exhibition (2) escapes (13) free household (8) free exhibition (10) human struggle (2) household chemical (1) heartbreak (2) information services (6) integrated transport (7) information professionals (2) installment (5) information week (10) iranian girl (3) improved new (3) lake macquarie city (13) library promotions (11) lake macquarie city council (4) librarian (8) lake macquarie city library (9) libraries (5) memoir (4) new development (4) origins (4) planning service (10) public hearing (11) rediscover (6) residents (11) sorrow (3) stakeholders (12) search engine (15) transport centre (10) website www (7) website features (15)
  1. Leaving aside those mentioning "Lake Macquarie", what are the top ranking topics?
  2. How would you change the web site to bring these topics to the front?
Keep the web pages you find as they will be used in a later exercise to prepare a web page.


Available from: Thursday, 17 May 2007, 12:05 PM
Due date: Wednesday, 23 May 2007, 09:30 AM