by Qian Lu, SID: 450429523
This is a commentary on a news article Commission into Family Violence delivers findings, posted on Upstart, written by Matthew Elmas.
The concise and clear headlines with keywords is important to search engine optimisation (SEO) (Bradshaw et al., 2011, p.36). This article has a clear and unambiguous headline. The simple introduction contains the information about who, what and when to lead readers.
This article also used video and photos to get readers engaged, moreover, the author used several hyperlinks to give background information and related stories.
The site allows readers to comment on this article, which enhances the interactivity.
Tagging and categorising content contributes to SEO as well (ibid.), the tag “domestic violence” makes readers easier to search.
However, there are some drawbacks of this article.
Long article could be chunk out by white space, sub-headings, images, embedded video or audio. There are one image and an embedded video, but no sub-headings to navigate readers.
There is no social media share button on the site, so readers can not share it to others and the click rate would be low.
( Word count: 192)
References:
Bradshaw, P., & Rohumaa, L. (2013). The online journalism handbook: skills to survive and thrive in the digital age. Routledge. pp.29-46.
Elmas, M. (2016, March 30). Commission into Family Violence delivers findings. Retrieved from http://www.upstart.net.au/2016/03/30/royal-commission-into-family-violence-delivers-227-reccomendations/
StoryTeller 
Great analysis, Angela. I agree that there is a large amount of text ‘chunking’ that makes the article difficult to navigate, and the addition of sub-headings is a good suggestion.
Some other improvements that I think would help are that the sub-title and lead-line font could be minimised or made more distinguishable from each other so it’s not as confusing for the readers. Also the embedded images and tweets could be centrally aligned in order to guide the reader through the text and scrolling.
Downsizing quotes could also assist in streamlining the information and amount of text presented. The inclusion of bullet points to highlight the significant findings could also assist in helping reader’s gain information easily.
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Very easy to read and to the point post – love how you practice what you preach and have used great web writing practice here! You’ve covered the article in a versatile, comprehensive way and raised key points relating to SEO and user interactivity while actually keeping me reading until the end.
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Good insights, Angela! I agree with your suggestions on adding sub-headings to the long article. Bullet points presenting key information will help as well. I also noticed one image embedded on the article, with the caption, “An excerpt from the full report.” I find the image very pixelated which makes the information hard to read. This decreases the technical delivery of the article. I hope these suggestions can help you on the assignment’s second part.
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