There is a tension between being relevant and being reputable

…or ‘how to get read on the World-Wide-Web.’

This is a presentation about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but it is also about literacy and reputation in the age of the Internet. It is about how to understand and write well for the web so that like-minded people can learn about what you’ve got to say and be compelled to tell others about what you’ve got to say, too.

Although it’s not aimed at scholarly writing, that doesn’t matter. To Google’s crawlers, HTML source code is HTML source code, whether you publish articles about research into HIV or have something pointless to say about the latest gadget. No matter what the content is about there are literary as well as technical observations that can improve your communication and the impact of your writing.

Much of the presentation elaborates on this: “There is a tension between relevance and reputable.” It’s interesting.