As the WHO has just declared Covid19 a pandemic in a speech, the Huffington Post published an article starting with the video speech. While the placement of the video at the top is engaging users directly and gives a short sum-up of the event, the video follows and plays automatically while a user scrolls disturbing the reader. It also features an ad first and replays every time the user comes in its vicinity. Similarly, a subscription window opens at the bottom of the tab blocking parts of the article, hence, users need to scroll and click more to close both windows. Therefore, to enhance readers’ experience and focus on the article, the video could stay put and the subscription could be relocated to the beginning or end of the article.
Furthermore, for SEO purposes, the main headline could be extended to include more keywords and further subheadings in the article itself could improve the search ranking. The article could further include a data visualisation to engage readers in the latter part of the article, besides the video and embedded tweet in the beginning. Similarly, while all links are working and relevant they could be spread out better including more information on the current situation in Italy, Iran and Trump’s commentary towards the end.
Lastly, users can only interact to share a suggestion or correction. Social media channels should be linked at the beginning and end of the article to share, comment or like the article. However, a comment section might not be appropriate here as the topic is controversial and easily leads to panic.
Good choice of news story for your analysis. In your own post, you have used an embedded link that opens in a new tab, and also assigned good relevant keyword tags.
You suggest HuffPo could have included more keywords and subheadings in the article to improve SEO – which words? Can you provide a link to a data visualisation to illustrate your point about user engagement? You should also use subheadings in your own post, along with other techniques of good online writing such as subheadings and bullet points where relevant, to enhance scannability and readability.
Images would add meaning to the post both as illustrations of the points you are making and as visual devices to break up text. In your future posts, ensure every image is captioned and attribution is given to the copyright holder or creator of the image.
You use some of the naming conventions for the features and functions of online journalism, and make good observations for improvements to the layout of the HuffPo story. In part 2 of the assignment, make sure you refer to Bradshaw and other readings to support your analysis.