These are the FORMATTING, STYLE and SEO rules for my posts (and pages)

Why?

So that they convert nicely to other channels, viz.

  1. Medium.com
  2. LinkedIn
  3. facebook
  4. Blogger
  5. etc. etc. etc.

Also, so that they convert nicely to the cut-and-pasted multiple language versions of these posts.

Use what is COMPATIBLE

Do use what is available in the Byword and Paragraphs apps.  Don’t use what isn’t.   That’s the underlying concept.
Strictly we want to use the set intersection of features available in Byword App, Paragraphs App, LinkedIn articles, Facebook Notes, Medium Stories,

  • Don’t use colours – as they are not available on medium and linkedin.
  • Do use two header levels – as they are used on medium and linkedin
  • Don’t use more than two header levels – as they will not convert to medium or linkedIn – instead use something like a line alone and bolded. That will always be recognised as a type of heading.
  • Do use Big Quoted Paragraphs – That’s the big double quotes button above.  They are adopted by LinkedIn, Medium and others.
  • Do use bulleted lists – They get converted to over channels successfully.
  • Do use numbered lists – Even though the convention is not always as robust.
  • Do use bold and italic.  They both seem to get through to the other channels.  Italic is more trustworthy than bold – Bold sometimes gets missed.
  • Do use Preformatted (code) paragraph style, where helpful.  These also are very standard devices that are adopted by LinkedIn, Medium.com and most others.  They are the Preformatted paragraph style in wordpress.
  • Don’t use indentation other than with bulleted (and numbered) lists   This isn’t available in Byword and LinkedIn etc. It always IS available for lists though – i.e. lists are the only way to do indenting...
  • Don’t use underline.  It isn’t available elsewhere, often has special interpretation (hyperlinks) and does not convert well.
  • Don’t use special line-breaks – created using SHIFT-ENTER or COMMAND-ENTER.  These are not always available and do not transfer well – they create a mess on the other channels.

Use Good Style

  • Use plenty of very short headers.  These are easy to read and provide a great quick-scan to the content of the article.
  • Use plenty of pictures.  Article with pictures get read – those without tend not to get read.   Must have plenty of pertinent pictures.  They promote your product.
  • Use plenty of hyperlinks.  Particularly to your own website.  These get copied through to other channels and continue to promote your site, but also end up giving better ranking on Google Search etc.

Promote Yourself

  • Try to always include a picture of the product – a framed iPhone picture – A picture tells a thousand words – you want folk to be seeing the picture of the product as much as possible, so why would you ever NOT have a picture of your product.

Adopt Good SEO

  • Always add in your categories and tags.  These help with SEO
  • Add cornerstone content flag where appropriate.

 

Workflow

ByWord —> WordPress –> Other Channels (Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)

  • Consider authoring in Byword first.  It’s probably worth getting used to that tool as it can grow into something worthwhile.  It manages the formatting better than anything else,
  • Author in WordPress asap.  That’s because, being HTML, wordpress copies well to the other channels, and it also has inbuilt publishing to other channels as well.
  • Images – Little point including in Byword, but very worthwhile including in WordPress.  They transfer to other channels well.
  • Validation – Spelling, Grammar, Language – Early, Often and Complete.
    1. Use spelling and grammar checking in Byword.  
    2. Use Grammarly and Hemingway early.  Ensure you have put the entire text through grammarly and hemingway before going to publication – or else you’ll look silly.
    3. Use WordPress spelling and grammar – available view ^ VIEW ^ Proofread Writing
    4. Additionally use WordPress’ extra features for SEO. 
  • Finalise in WordPress – The Eng. lang. version in WordPress needs to be finalised early – all the wording, grammar, and ideas complete and tuned.  Also the images need to be carefully selected.  Once this is complete, use WordPress to produce the foreign language versions of the post.  Remember to convert the product shot to the respective language version. 

Examples

Big quoted paragraphs

These can include bold and italic.

They can even include headers

Header 1

header 2

Even, I guess, preformatted with its own bold and italic as well.

That’s why the DOUBLE-QUOTE button is separate from the paragraphs types… This is STANDARD – it’s the same in Byword, and, I believe, LinkedIn, Medium.com, etc.

 

A preformatted paragraph - in wordpress.  Called something else, elsewhere.  Here's a bit of bold and italic even both.   It is a paragraph TYPE.

 

Here is a standard paragraph

Here is a paragraph indented.  That’s actually a bad thing to do. 

Here is a paragraph doubly-indented.  That’s a terrible thing to do. 

  • Here is a bulleted list
  • And more bullets
  • and more
  • Here is a bulleted list.  Note – wordpress will NOT let you indent the first item in the list . Good. 
    • And more.  Here is an indented bullet. 
      • And this is still further indented.
    • and more

Here’s a horizontal  line – insert by using INSERT