The previous chapter identified some of the best practices for digital writing that will help engage readers’ interest and make it easier for them to pick out the main ideas in a text. Most of those general principles are consistent across different web genres, but the reality is that not all web writing is the same. Writing strategies and accepted standards differ depending on what it is that you are writing—depending on which genre. A genre is a type of writing, a category that can be distinguished because it has certain qualities. Often when you think of a genre, you might think of a type of literature—for instance, fantasy, science fiction, romance—and you can tell which genre it is because of the type of story that it is and the way that the plot unfolds. Or you might think about types of music—for example, country, rap, heavy metal, classic rock. Again, you’d probably be able to identify the genre of a song pretty quickly based on the melody, the instruments involved, and the lyrics. Webster’s Dictionary defines genre as a “category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.” However, even that definition is too narrow to accurately capture the idea of a genre because it doesn’t have to be “artistic” or “literary.” A text message, for instance, is a genre with defining qualities that separate it from other writing styles—the use of emojis, acronyms, GIFs, and short conversational messages. Text messages tend to be less formal, reserved for close family and friends, which helps dictate what is appropriate. In contrast, a résumé is a completely different genre, written for a different audience and purpose and with very different elements of format, tone, and content. If you’d never written a résumé before, you’d have to learn how to format your document appropriately and what type of information should be included. You’d also pay attention to writing style and tone, which is more formal and serious in nature. You’d never (hopefully) write a résumé with emojis, text acronyms, or memes. Your résumé wouldn’t be taken seriously.

In a similar way, there are a variety of web genres with specific features that help distinguish one from another, and those features correspond with particular purposes and audience expectations. In fact, like all rhetorical considerations, your selection of genre and your choice to follow certain genre conventions relate directly to your purpose and audience. The School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University calls genre a “typified rhetorical action,” meaning that certain features are repeated across different genres “because audiences expect certain things to happen or they want certain kinds of experiences” (Pflugfelder). In other words, the audience is more receptive to a message when it follows conventional patterns that they are familiar with. While there might certainly be occasions to stray from particular genre conventions in specific rhetorical situations, following the accepted standards helps build your credibility with the audience, enhances readers’ understanding of the message, and increases the chances that the audience will respond favorably.

This chapter takes a closer look at the most common web genres and the conventions and rhetorical considerations of each one. It also provides a deeper explanation of genre convention, which will allow you to identify these conventions in other types of writing that aren’t discussed here. The main idea is to consider the audience’s needs and expectations and how certain conventions will create more positive and compelling reader experiences.

Defining Genre Convention

Before we look at specific web genres, it might be helpful to take a closer look at genre conventions in general and why they are so important for all kinds of writing. If a genre is a particular category of writing, then a genre convention is a particular feature that is definitive of that genre, helping readers to easily understand what it is and how it should be read. You might remember from chapter 8 in this textbook that rhetoric is inherently social. It facilitates human relationships and activities, which is why so much emphasis is placed on the audience. A genre is also social. New genres emerge alongside new technologies and new ways of interacting with other people. An X post, for instance, is a relatively new genre that has expanded the ways people can communicate and the variety of audiences they can communicate with. It enhances communication, and because it continues to address specific needs, people still use it. In contrast, handwritten letters and postcards, though not completely out of fashion, aren’t nearly as popular as they once were because new genres (and technologies) have taken their place. They aren’t needed because newer and faster ways of communicating are available.

So when we consider various genres and the conventions that define each one, it’s helpful to think more deeply about their social function—the activity or type of communication that a particular genre affords. In discussing the rhetorical interplay between genre and medium, the Purdue OWL explains that “genre is a form of writing with set functions determined by its social need” (“Genre and Medium”). For instance, a grocery list developed out of the need to remember a large number of items that you need to purchase, and so the list—along with its classic convention of short, bulleted items, separated on different lines—emerged as a way to quickly and easily identify the things you want to purchase.

Perhaps the social function of a genre and its corresponding conventions becomes easiest to understand when we consider a genre that doesn’t follow the standard convention. What if you were asked by a friend to go to the store to purchase a few items, and they handed you a grocery list they had created, but instead of following the typical format of each item on a separate line, their “list” had everything running together so that it looked more like a paragraph. And instead of having just the name of each item they need, they wrote everything out in sentence form, explaining more about the item and why they need it. You’d have an entire page full of words, and it would be incredibly difficult to pick out the items on their list. It would take you a long time to read through everything, and because everything is run together, chances are that you’d miss some of the things on their list.

Another classic example of genre is the job résumé. Obviously, the content of a résumé is very personal, tailored to highlight individual qualifications and experiences and also adapted to a specific audience/employer. You might also have noticed if you have used some sort of template to create your own résumé that the layout might change slightly depending on your design preferences and the types of information that you want to highlight. However, there are some basic features that all résumés have in common. You can probably name several off the top of your head. They are typically written in black type with a legible font like Arial or Times New Roman. They have the person’s name and contact information at the top. They have clear headings for professional experience, education, special skills, and references. They are short, typically no longer than a single page. These are fairly simple conventions, but they are important. They facilitate the rhetorical purpose of the résumé by making it easier to quickly highlight key qualifications and skills that will be persuasive to an employer. They also make it easier to write the résumé, since the formatting and basic content are already established. What’s more, these genre conventions make it easier for the audience to read and interpret the résumé. Assuming an employer would be familiar with the genre of a résumé, they can quickly scan the document and easily pick out key information that will help them move forward in the decision-making process.

As you can see, a single genre often includes several conventions that make it distinct, and these conventions include a lot of different elements including formatting, tone, organizational structure, and the content itself. Understanding the underlying reason for various conventions and how they aid in the reader experience will enhance your writing in a few different ways. First of all, it will be more readable because it adheres to writing patterns that readers are familiar with, so they can more easily pick out your main ideas. Any time you come across a new genre, you will likely struggle at first to understand what the conventions are and how to adapt your writing so that it seems authentic but still adheres to the audience’s expectations. However, cultivating an awareness of genre will help you make this transition, as it will play a key role in the writing and revision processes. Second, genres provide greater opportunity for creativity and deep critical thinking. That might seem counterintuitive given that genres create parameters that seem to limit your creative options, but the reality is that a genre is a productive lens that guides your writing and thinking process. In terms of the rhetorical situation, genres are created to meet particular purposes that respond to certain exigencies; therefore, focusing on the genre conventions will enhance your ability to write something meaningful. Finally, following genre conventions increases your credibility because it signals to readers that you are experienced in this genre and have thought about their needs and expectations. Even conventions that seem relatively minor will demonstrate your expertise and attention to detail, which will go a long way to spark goodwill and similar generosity in your audience.

Emails

We’ll begin with a genre that most people are already familiar with—the email. From a rhetorical standpoint, your approach to an email depends largely on the context of your message—who your audience is and the subject of your email—but generally speaking, emails are considered more formal than text messages and should avoid being overly informal or using “texty” language and emojis. From a professional standpoint, there are a couple of different types of emails that you might have to write. The first and most obvious is a work-related email to a colleague, client, or vendor, in which case you obviously want to be friendly but also to the point. Just like other types of digital writing, emails should be fairly brief if possible with content broken down into individual paragraphs and bulleted information for enhanced readability. You might also need to hyperlink to websites and other documents that are pertinent to the conversation. You’d probably also have some sort of call to action (CTA) at the end, even if just to invite that person to let you know if they have more questions or to request that they get back to you about a specific question or issue.

The second type of professional email is a marketing tool, a message that is part of a targeted campaign, and it’s a way of reaching out individually to leads that your company has acquired. Remember that one of the functions of a website is to generate leads. Companies then use that list of current and prospective customers to send targeted emails, often giving them more information about a specific promotion, letting them know that the latest blog post is available, inviting them to an event, and so on. Obviously, these types of emails can get annoying, and people will quickly “unsubscribe” or assign them to their spam folder if they don’t find the information to be useful. That’s why you should be very intentional about the type of content (and how much content) that you send and focus on the leads that have expressed genuine interest in your organization. For emails that are part of a concerted marketing campaign, several genre conventions can be applied:

• Have a clear subject line. Just like blog articles and social media posts will engage attention with a specific and catchy title, so will an email title. Since most people get hundreds of emails each day, you want to create a title that will grab their attention and says something specific about what the message entails. While different email platforms vary, you’d generally want your title to be shorter than 60 characters so it doesn’t get cut off.
• Write preview text. Some email platforms also show preview text, sort of like a subtitle that provides additional information or a slightly different hook, typically 45 characters or less (Slater).
• Keep it short. Once again, less is more. A couple of short paragraphs are all you really have to engage the reader so that they understand the value of what you are offering and feel compelled to take action.
• Have a clear CTA. Since these emails are often used as an internal marketing tool to draw people to your site, the call to action does just that. It prompts readers to click a link so they can read the new blog article, get more information about a product or event, and so on.
• Provide contact information. A professional signature should include the sender’s name, company logo, phone number, and email address so that the reader can easily follow up with questions.

Websites

Almost all businesses maintain a website as the “front door” to their organization, realizing that before most customers set foot in the store (if there is a physical space), they will go to the website to get information about store hours, products, mission, and so on. It’s the first impression most people will have about the organization, so providing useful content, organizing information effectively, and using rhetorical strategies to engage readers will create a positive user experience and strengthen the organization’s brand. Even individuals sometimes maintain websites for personal or professional reasons, knowing that they will reach a much wider audience and have access to design tools that will create a positive connection.

As we discuss the various other web genres—blogs, social media posts, emails, and so on—it’s important to keep in mind that these are often used as collateral marketing tools that serve the primary function of guiding people back to the website, where they can learn more information about a particular event or product, make a purchase, schedule an appointment, and so on. Leland Dieno, an entrepreneur and expert in digital marketing, says, “Your website is the center of your digital ecosystem,” meaning that everything else revolves around the content you provide there. It’s the place where users will go to find information, and if it’s organized well, it will create a clear path to help them learn about your organization and respond positively to your call to action, whatever that might be. Kunjan Mehta explains it like this:

Web development can help you create a clear path for where you want your customers to go, how they will get there, and what the goals are for your audience. Everything else you do stems from these aspects and connects back to your website. No matter what else is involved with your digital ecosystem, the ultimate goal is to direct all online activity back to your website.

Website development is a very big topic, and there are many nuances in functionality (which continue to evolve quickly with new integrations and plugin updates) and differences from one web platform to the next. Many businesses pay web developing companies thousands of dollars to create and update their website, but advancements in digital tools and user-friendly platforms have also made it possible for people to create and maintain their own website—if they are willing to take some time to learn how. While it’s beyond the scope of this textbook to discuss the “how-to” aspect of the different web hosting platforms, there are numerous resources available that do. For instance, WebsiteBuilderInsider has created a resource guide for web development that discusses many different aspects of the planning stages (Brandon). There are also a number of articles online, like this one by Niel Patel, that give an overview of the different website platforms and the pros and cons of each one. Once you decide on a platform, there are also numerous YouTube videos, created by the hosting services as well as experienced users, to help you get started and to troubleshoot various issues.

The main goal of this section of the textbook is to help you think more clearly about the purpose of the website and how to develop content to help you meet that purpose. We’ll also discuss best practices in website design.

Functionality

A website has a number of different purposes, and while the specific functions of a website will obviously vary from one circumstance to another, at its core, a website is typically designed with five key purposes in mind:

1. Attract visitors. One of the main functions of a website is to attract people’s attention, to engage them with the information presented and the overall mission and service that is provided. We’ll talk in more detail in the next chapter about SEO and ways to optimize a website so that users can easily find your web page. For right now, we’ll focus on the idea of inbound marketing, which relates to strategies that web developers and content writers use to draw people to their sites (Hubspot). As opposed to outbound marketing tactics that push content out to a broad audience (think billboards, magazine ads, television commercials), inbound marketing works harder to identify the wants, needs, and values of the target audience and to create web content that is relevant to those expectations. As content is developed, there is special consideration given to users’ pain points and the potential search terms (keywords) they might use to find information about how to solve those problems. This is one way that a website becomes “optimized” so that a website becomes easier to find and use (Fitzgerald). Other strategies include
   • Creating unique meta descriptions for each web page. A meta description is the information that appears on the search engine results page (SERP) (Google Search Central), and it includes the URL, a title of the page that users can click on to get to the web page, and a “snippet” of text that gives a description of the content on that page (Riddall). By providing relevant and interesting information and a call to action, a website is much more likely to attract visitors. The image below is an example of a meta description of what a snippet might look like if you searched for the best beach destinations in the United States. It even includes a picture to entice visitors.

1. • Creating meta tags for other content on the page—titles, alt tags for images and graphics, headers (Hughes).
   • Creating a Google Business Profile that provides contact information, business hours, customer reviews, and other helpful information for potential customers (Caplan). It not only builds awareness about a business but also builds credibility and provides a path directly to the website.
2. Provide useful content. This goes hand in hand with the purpose listed above—to attract visitors. Many of the strategies used to attract visitors have to do with meta descriptions and strategies that make a website visible to potential customers. However, there are many SEO practices designed to mislead users so that it looks like a web page has relevant and interesting content. For instance, keyword stuffing is an attempt to rank higher on the SERP by continually repeating keywords and phrases over and over (BigCommerce Essentials). Even if this were to position a web page higher on the SERP (which it doesn’t), it creates a negative user experience because a page that uses this strategy is often difficult to read and doesn’t provide the types of information that a visitor is looking for. So they will very quickly bounce off the page. Successful content writers carefully consider the needs and expectations of their target audience. They think through the types of information that users will be looking for, the questions that they might have as they navigate the site, and they are intentional about making that information easy to find and easy to understand. In fact, a large part of an organization’s content strategy revolves around pinpointing the type of content that users are looking for and making it easy to find (Forsey). This relates directly to the meta descriptions you provide for each page, but it also includes choices regarding website navigation, titles and subheadings, the way information is organized on a page, and the design choices you make. It also relates to the language you use and your effort to be upfront and specific. This will not only engage visitors but create a positive experience and help build trust with potential customers.
3. Strengthen your brand. An obvious function of a website is to communicate the unique identity and mission of an organization to the audience. It’s an opportunity to fully develop your story—the history of the organization, profiles of organizational leaders and staff members, the mission of the organization, customer testimonials, and so on. Remember that a brand is your image—the way that you want others to perceive you. It relates directly to the way that people perceive your values, personality, work ethic, community culture. When visitors have positive experiences and impressions on a website, it not only strengthens their perception of the organization, but it increases the chances that they will leave positive reviews, share information about the organization, and use their personal social media accounts to like, share, and repost content that will shape others’ perceptions of the organization as well. Since we talked at length about branding in chapter 9, we won’t rehash it here. Suffice it to say that an organization’s efforts at branding can sometimes be explicit, related to things like its logo and tagline, mission statement, history, credentials and certifications, staff photos and profiles, charity involvement, and customer reviews. It can also relate to more subtle cues—how easy it is to find information on the website, how well information is organized, how company policies are communicated, the tone of the language and overall design, and of course, how satisfied customers are with the service they receive when they do engage with an organization.
4. Prompt action. Remember that rhetorically, websites are developed with a purpose in mind—a particular way that the speaker wants the audience to respond. To that end, everything on the website should be working toward that end goal to compel readers to respond. However, an effective website will also give a call to action (CTA) that explicitly tells readers what they should do next and then points them in the right direction (Optimizely). Of course, different messages might have different CTAs depending on their purpose and where visitors might be in their buyer journey. Some CTAs might simply prompt readers to “read more” about a particular service or concept or to “schedule an appointment” or “get a free quote” to help move them forward in the buyer journey. Others might want readers to sign up for a newsletter, share something on social media, volunteer for an event, sign up for a free trial, or “buy now.” Web pages that direct readers about what they should do next and provide a clear path to take that action are much more likely to meet their communication goals.
5. Generate leads. It’s probably not a first priority to collect contact information of potential customers, but one important function of a website is to generate leads so it’s easy to communicate with current and potential customers about services, events, and product updates (Boyarsky). For instance, many websites have contact forms where users can put in their information (an email probably and maybe an email address or mailing address) in order to get more information or to receive a response about a question or problem. Other websites have pop-up windows inviting users to subscribe to a newsletter or sign up for a free trial. Using these and many other strategies, user information is collected and stored in a spreadsheet or a lead management platform that makes it easy to deliver content directly to users via email, text message, or mail. This can be a very effective way to drive more traffic to your website and create consistent engagement with people in your target market. On the other hand, many websites use deceptive strategies to collect user information (Baydin). Maybe a visitor wants to get more information about a product or service, but they are required to put in their email address in order to access that information. Deceptive lead generation strategies trick users into providing their contact information or they collect this information without user permission, through some sort of third-party organization that sells leads. That’s when people receive what they consider to be spam emails and text messages and feel bombarded, even harassed, by marketing schemes they don’t care about. Those are the types of experiences that create negative impressions and undermine the brand that you are trying to create.

Genre Conventions for a Website

Genre conventions are always connected to purpose, allowing readers to quickly and easily engage with the ideas of a text. Website conventions are no exception. However, a visitor arrives on a web page—via a Google search or a link on a social media post or in an email—chances are they are looking for specific information. They are interested in learning more about the product, service, mission, event, or concept highlighted on that page, but as we’ve already discussed, most visitors don’t spend much time at all reading a web page. They scan headlines and subheadings. They skim through bulleted lists. They might quickly scan the navigation bar at the top. And if they don’t find what they are looking for, they will bounce away. The best practices for a website listed below are reader-centered, geared toward engaging visitors and making it easy for them to quickly find the information they need.

• Streamline the content. Be selective as you prioritize the information on a page and the number of pages on a website. Though larger organizations might need larger websites with more menu items and web pages, big websites are often more difficult for users to navigate because there is more content to sift through, and it’s often harder to find the information they are looking for. Having a streamlined site map with a few key menu items and shorter web pages that are easy to read will go a long way to keep readers engaged. In other words, sometimes less is more.
• Put the most important information first on the page. This is called an inverted pyramid structure (Purdue OWL, “The Inverted Pyramid”). Putting the most important information first will help it stand out to readers, who can then read on to get more detailed information about that particular topic as they move down the page. However, if they have to scroll or if the key information is buried within large chunks of text, readers are much less likely to stay on the page. And if they don’t stay to read the entire page (as most readers don’t), then they will have at least gotten the main idea. Clearly labeled titles and subheadings (in larger, bold font than the rest of the text) will also help.
• Be intentional about organization. According to The Web Project Guide, successful website organization entails three things: grouping like content together, creating a logical navigation system, and providing clear labels (Vilhauer et al.). Often a useful way to organize content on your website is through categories, where pages are grouped together because they have similar content. For instance, many websites have an “About” section on the main navigation menu at the top of the home page. This could include a drop-down menu with several content pages: mission statement, employee profiles, company history, and so on. Figuring out how similar items should be grouped together is the first step. Then you need to create a site map, demonstrating the organizational structure of your site and using clear menu labels. This Creately.com website provides free tools that allow users to create their own site map, or you can always draw it out on a piece of paper.
• Focus on readability. This includes all of the strategies that guide a reader through the content of a web page so it’s easy for them to pick out the main idea: Headings, subheadings, bulleted lists, short paragraphs, simple sentence structures, and word choice that is clear and specific. Readability also relates to the formatting choices that you make. For instance, websites tend to use a font that is sans serif, which makes it easier to read. Similarly, higher-level text like titles and subtitles might be in bold and in a larger font than the rest of the text. Items should be spaced appropriately so that things aren’t crammed together, but readers can still tell which items go together.
• Be specific. People visiting the site are looking for certain types of information about products, services, upcoming events, pricing, and so on. It’s your job to carefully consider the information that readers are looking for and to provide that information so that it’s clear. Readers will quickly become frustrated with vague, flowery text that doesn’t really tell them anything. Product descriptions, for instance, would go beyond a list of adjectives to also include product dimensions, items that are included, capabilities, other outside items needed for use, and any other information that would help them determine whether they want to buy the product. Certainly, there’s a balance between streamlining content and providing enough detail. The point is to use the space that you have to give content that is meaningful for readers, and to provide opportunities to get more information.
• Use hyperlinks. Hyperlinks help visitors make connections. This can be especially helpful as they are navigating your site. Internal links to relevant pages guide readers to more detailed information on your website about a specific topic. Similarly hyperlinks at the bottom of a web page that coincide with the call to action to schedule an appointment or get more information increase the likelihood of a user taking that action. External links to credible, relevant web pages are also useful in building your own credibility and providing important information to readers without taking up more room on the page. Obviously, you’d want to be strategic about hyperlinks, limiting the amount on a given page so readers aren’t overwhelmed. You’d also want to be selective about the words that you choose for a hyperlink so that it’s fairly clear what type of information readers will find if they follow the link. For example, let’s say that a fitness blog has the following sentence: “There are many different methods for increasing your stamina during a workout.” If the words “different methods” or “increasing your stamina” were hyperlinked (as evidenced by the telltale blue, underlined text), then readers would expect that it links to more information about what those methods are. On the other hand, if they are taken to a product page with running shoes for sale, they’d likely be confused and probably a little frustrated.
• Use visuals. Consider the types of pictures and other images that will help engage readers. Visuals have several different purposes on a web page. On one hand, they can be used to help clarify information. A map or a pie graph, for instance, is a visual that can be used to support written content on a page and help readers more easily process that information. The same might be said for a table, chart, or photo. A company that sells cars, for instance, would obviously include pictures of the car that they are trying to sell so that readers have a clearer understanding of what it looks like. Visuals can also be used for branding—to help visitors get a clear sense of the personality or mission of a person or organization. For instance, a children’s hospital would likely use photos of doctors working with children, particularly pictures where the children are smiling. These types of photos would go a long way to demonstrate the level of care and compassion the hospital provides. It would also be a very persuasive element that would make visitors more likely to bring their children to that hospital or to donate money. Visuals serve several different rhetorical functions, which is why they are so important to include on your website.
• Think aesthetics. A website that is visually appealing is much more likely to engage readers. As discussed in chapter 10, various design elements can be used to help convey meaning. Color choice, font size, font design, graphics, and images can all be used to direct readers’ attention and help them more easily read and understand the information. But design choices also affect the overall user experience and develop the ethos of the organization. According to this Crowdbotics article about the “Aesthetic of Modern Web Design,” the aesthetics of a website includes the overall layout with different components, menus, buttons, images, icons, colors, fonts, and so on. It also incorporates interactive features, such as sounds, animations, and symbols. Together, these features create a user-friendly appearance and leave an impact on the intended audience.
• Provide clear calls to action. Almost every page on a website has a call to action that explicitly invites users to take the next step to find out more information, to donate money, to buy a product, to read a full article, and so on. These might be as buttons or clear statements with a hyperlink at the bottom of the page.
• Keep content updated. One way to quickly lose credibility is to have information on your website that is clearly outdated. Maybe there are links that no longer work or information that is no longer relevant. Perhaps the calendar of events still hasn’t been updated and still includes information from previous months. This is a cue for readers that maintaining the website isn’t a big priority for you and that much of the information might not be accurate. In addition to updating the information, swapping out new pictures or videos is a great way to keep the website fresh, demonstrating an active online presence and an effort to continually engage with your target audience.

Blogs

While blogs are often housed as part of a larger website and utilize similar genre conventions, they are listed here as a separate genre because their rhetorical function is a little different. For most organizations, the purpose of a blog is to further develop their brand with the target audience, strengthen their credibility in a particular area of expertise, solidify connections with readers through meaningful content, and increase traffic to their website (Cardenas). One of the genre conventions listed above for a website is to keep the content “fresh.” However, this might be difficult to do on the larger website since the overall mission and service offerings aren’t likely to change very often. Posting blog articles every week or so is a great strategy for keeping the content fresh, offering readers new and relevant information, and getting people to come back again and again to your website, where they are more likely to not only read the article but also follow your call to action at the end to get more information, share your blog post with others, or buy a product.

Before we get into the genre conventions of a blog post, let’s talk about niche. All successful blogs have a particular niche or an area of focus (Connell). It helps build their brand as an expert in a particular field or topic, and it keeps readers in the target audience, who are also interested in learning about that particular topic, engaged. For instance, there are quite a few travel bloggers on various platforms who write about their experiences in various travel destinations, providing travel tips and an overview of things to do and see. Their “niche” is travel, which means that if they suddenly began posting about DIY projects around the house or gardening tips, their audience would be confused. Their brand as a travel expert would be weakened by messaging that doesn’t relate. This is a mistake that many novice bloggers make—trying to write about a lot of different things, which makes their blog somewhat eclectic and scattered. It might do a good job demonstrating their own interests and experiences, which might engage that person’s immediate family and friends, but it won’t be as effective in attracting other followers.

Obviously, whatever niche you pick should relate directly to your brand—either your individual brand if you are developing your own website and blog or your organizational brand. A hardware store, for instance, might develop a blog around DIY projects and home repairs, which is a way of developing expertise in that area and showcasing the products they have available for those jobs. Readers get useful information about how to do these types of projects, and they are more likely to visit the store to get individualized advice or buy specific tools. Similarly, a daycare might focus on a blog about childhood development and best practices for engaging with different age groups. A university might write a blog about student success, with topics related to academics, financial aid, housing, and so on. A local yoga studio might write a blog about different yoga techniques, benefits, basic exercises, and underlying principles, which would be of great interest to people who are interested in trying yoga. It provides them with useful content and it positions the yoga studio as an expert in this area who is genuinely interested in helping people be successful.

While it’s important to have a focused niche, you also want your topic selection to be broad enough that there are lots of new and interesting things to write about in that area. That way, you can easily post a new blog article every week or so. All of the examples above could be developed into very robust and dynamic blogs because there is so much room to write about various topics. The university blog about student success, for instance, is a very flexible niche. Blog articles could be about time management, how to decode a syllabus, how to schedule classes, how to understand graduation requirements, how to effectively study for an exam, how to get a meaningful internship, and on and on. Specific article topics in that larger niche would be never-ending and provide lots of meaningful information for current students, prospective students, and parents, who would develop a deeper connection with the university as they continue to engage with the blog. As you are considering your own niche, a good test would be to see whether you can come up with 10–15 article ideas within that niche. If you can’t, it might be a sign that your niche is too narrow and that you need to expand it a little more. For example, student success is a lot more broad of a niche than study skills. DIY is a much broader niche than window replacement. It might take some time to land on the right niche that is narrow enough to build your brand and yet broad enough that there are lots of things you could write about.

Once the overall niche is established, there are several standard genre conventions that most blog posts follow, which, once again, are directly related to the primary goal of engaging readers and persuading them to take some sort of action. Every genre convention is rhetorical in the fact that it influences the way that a reader will respond to the message. Some important genre conventions for a blog article include the following:

• Stay focused. A blog article should clearly relate back to the niche you’ve established and it should stay focused on the topic that it advertises in the title and the introduction. While blogs come in varying lengths, some as short as 300 words and others as long as 2,000 words, they should stay focused on the topic at hand and avoid unnecessary tangents. While longer blogs might spend more time developing background information or elaborating on each subpoint, everything should clearly work together to develop one main idea that you think will be of value to your target audience.
• Chunk your content. While staying focused on one key idea, it’s also useful for readers if blog articles are broken down into subsections with clear headings that make it easy to follow along with the structure of the article. For instance, a blog article about the cognitive benefits of yoga might begin with a brief hook about the obvious physical benefits of yoga and then transition into the little-known fact that it also benefits cognition. It might then have a section that defines “What Is Cognition,” followed by subsections that identify some of the main cognitive benefits: “Improved Memory,” “Better Focus,” “Enhanced Problem-Solving.” Each of these headings would help categorize different parts of the article so that it’s easier to follow. Each section might then have three to five short paragraphs focused on that particular subtopic.
• Be concise. Once again, you want to be concise with your writing. Keep paragraphs short with two to four sentences each. Use bullets when appropriate. Use simple sentence structures, and find ways to eliminate unnecessary words and phrases. Certainly, it might happen that you need to add words to your blog post to hit your desired word count (as blog articles should generally be consistent from one post to the next), but that doesn’t mean filling up the article with “fluff.” Instead, you’d add examples, statistics, or descriptions that add meaning and keep readers interested.
• Have an engaging, specific title. Blog titles engage readers because they are clear about the value proposition—the thing that readers will gain from reading the article. For instance, an article titled “Ten Best Travel Destinations on the East Coast” or “Reduce Your Debt in Three Easy Steps” are both very specific titles that tell readers exactly what the articles are about and how readers will benefit from reading them. This, in turn, is more likely to attract readers than titles that are vague or obscure.
• Use hyperlinks. Your blog article should be well researched and be transparent about where your information came from. Yes, you are building your own brand as an expert in a particular area, but it also greatly enhances your own credibility when you are able to link to other credible sources that support your ideas. The key word here is “credible,” meaning that you might connect to a recent study, a reputable organization, another well-known expert, a recent new article, and so on. You wouldn’t link to content that is old or where it is difficult to identify who the author is. You’d also avoid websites with a clear financial motive or bias. You might also avoid linking to a competing blog or company website that might steal readers’ focus. Hyperlinks can also be used internally as a way to link readers to relevant information on the website or previous blog articles about a particular topic. You’d want to be sparing with this to avoid too much self-promotion and writing that comes across as disingenuous, but a couple of internal links here and there could be useful to further engage readers.
• Write in a friendly, conversational tone. Blogs are generally less formal than the content of an organization’s website, which gives you the freedom to be more conversational. This is a great way to engage readers and build a rapport. If done well, it can also help develop your brand in particular ways. Generally speaking, a more conversational tone is more accessible. You’d avoid jargon and long-winded complex sentences that might otherwise come across as pretentious. You’d also have the opportunity to use language that’s a little more lighthearted and fun. However, you’d still want to maintain a level of professionalism, maintaining a focus on the main idea of the article and providing relevant information and hyperlinks to supporting information. Depending on the context, you might also want to avoid first person, which is completely appropriate for a personal blog but would come across as confusing and a little too informal for an organization’s blog.
• Post pictures and other visuals. Once again, pictures that are relevant to the content provided can be a great way of engaging readers and deepening their level of understanding. Charts, tables, and other graphics can also be a great way to break up written text.
• Proofread. Yes, a blog is more informal, but that doesn’t mean you can relax your standards for correct grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Proofreading errors can be incredibly distracting, making it difficult to understand a text and diminishing the credibility of the author. Do your due diligence and proofread carefully.
• Update often. While other parts of a website tend to be more static, meaning they aren’t updated very often, a blog is meant to be dynamic with new content added consistently. Be sure to date your blog posts and provide new content every couple of weeks. This is crucial to reader engagement as well as other communication goals related to branding, increased traffic to your website, and the overall customer journey.
• End with a CTA. Remember that a lot of digital messaging ends with a call to action, explicitly directing readers to the next steps they should take and providing a clear path to take that action, usually in the form of a hyperlink. Many companies have boilerplate information that goes at the bottom of a blog article, meaning that it’s repeated word-for-word every time, perhaps reminding readers of their overall mission, the ways that they can help customers with specific tasks, and directing them to resources where they can find more information and get in touch with an associate.

Social Media Posts

You’re probably familiar with the ways that individuals use social media platforms to post personal updates and photos, documenting important events or finding ways to connect with a larger group of family members and friends. While chapter 2 in this textbook dives into the positive and negative effects of social media usage from a personal perspective, this section focuses more on the genre conventions of social media posts from a professional perspective. Not surprisingly, the majority of businesses both large and small use social media as a key aspect of their marketing strategy because it’s a quick and inexpensive way to engage with customers, and it leverages algorithms and user-driven data to provide targeted marketing to the people who are most likely to be interested in their products and services (Turner). Also, as the LinkedIn article by Josh Turner confirms, the advantages go both ways. Customers also benefit from the ability to quickly connect with a business, and it affords a platform for them to share useful content and reviews with their own followers.

One reason that social media marketing is so popular is because it’s an incredibly effective way to reach people in the target audience with updates and engaging content that will (ideally) drive them to the website. Thus, companies are very intentional about their social media presence, selecting platforms where their target audience is likely to be and planning out content that will effectively grab their attention. Since there are literally hundreds of social media platforms, it doesn’t make sense that an organization would have an account on every single one. Instead, they’d do some research into the target market to find out which social media sites are most popular (Dean) and how certain demographics tend to use which platforms (Barnhart). For instance, a yoga studio would probably be most interested in targeting women in their thirties and forties, so they would focus on the social media platforms that women in their target market use.

Another key aspect of social media marketing is consistency. Some businesses post on social media every day in order to continuously engage with new and existing customers. However, they need meaningful content to post. That’s why many organizations create a social media calendar where they plan out the content they will post for the next month, often to promote upcoming events or report on recent organizational news (Kenan). However, to fill in the gaps in between events, many organizations will utilize content buckets, where they consider the different types of content they want to feature each month (Chickering). For instance, one bucket might be employee profiles, another bucket could be customer testimonials, and yet another bucket could be product highlights or an expert tip of some kind. However many buckets there are, content would be created so that a certain number of posts go into each bucket and then are placed on the monthly calendar to ensure that there are a variety of posts with unique content from one day to the next.

Finally, social media posts must be appropriate for the specific platform. For instance, LinkedIn is a social media platform geared toward professional advancement, highlighting career opportunities and professional development, so it wouldn’t be an appropriate place to highlight the latest yoga technique. The same goes for platforms like Tinder or Flixster. The content of your post should match the overall theme of the platform. Similarly, you’d want to match the specific genre conventions of a specific platform. There are far too many to list out here, so some general guidelines are listed below. Before posting on a social media platform you aren’t familiar with, you should get a clear sense of the types of the format that is most appropriate. X and Facebook, for instance, are more conducive to text-based posts, while Instagram is focused more on photos. YouTube is obviously geared toward videos. While you want your message to stand out to your target audience in a positive way, creating messaging that isn’t appropriate for a given platform will likely create confusion and weaken your credibility.

Specific platforms aside, there are some best practices for social media posts that span across all platforms:

• Be concise. Yes, this is a theme across all digital writing, but it’s especially true for social media platforms where readers tend to continuously scroll through their feed. You want to catch their attention right away and make it easy for them to quickly get the main idea of your post—probably in a sentence or two. X is a good example of a platform that limits the amount of characters you can use for each post, pushing users to be as succinct as possible. Other platforms don’t impose those limits, but they do collapse longer posts so that users have to click “read more” to see the entire post. Often readers don’t, and if they do, they will quickly move on if they are confronted with a wall of text.
• Use hashtags. You probably don’t want to overdo it with 7 to 10 hashtags, but having two or three hashtags (indicated by the # symbol) is a great way to connect the content of your post to other groups and to spread your message to larger audiences. Most platforms have a way for you to research popular hashtags for given topics so that you can use them appropriately.
• Title your post. Individual social media posts don’t usually have a title, but professional posts often do because it focuses readers’ attention and provides the same value proposition that a blog title does.
• Use appealing images. Readers are more likely to read your post if you engage their interest with a picture. For instance, a travel agency that posts an ad about “Affordable Beach Bungalows” would probably garner a lot more interest if they featured tropical pictures of happy vacationers lounging on their own bungalows. Some posts also use short videos and influencer testimonials to grab people’s attention.
• Give full URLs. Unless you have a button at the bottom of the post (which is often a good idea), social media platforms don’t use hyperlinks. If you want to link to a website, you have to give the full URL.
• Give a call to action. Once again, social media posts often give a call to action for people to learn more, which often links to a website or email address.
• Be engaged. As people in your audience engage with your post, commenting on the content, asking questions, giving reviews, then you should occasionally respond. You might not be able to respond to every single comment, but your presence will create a positive impression that you are genuinely interested in connecting with people. You might also receive more likes and followers if you are intentional about making connections with other people and organizations that are in your community or that are somehow complementary to your organization. They, in turn, would be more compelled to follow, like, and share your social media posts.

A Final Note about Genre

Of course, this chapter didn’t cover every digital writing genre. There are simply too many to cover. What’s more, the idea of genre gets even more complex when you consider the countless genres in specialized fields. For instance, while there are some basic principles that hold true for all websites, there are also different types of websites that have their own set of conventions. A university website, for instance, is substantially different from that of a restaurant, local charity, or used car dealership. A university would obviously post pictures of campus life, give details about the application process, and post specialized information about different majors and graduation requirements. When you look across a bunch of different university websites, you’ll see that most of them are organized in very similar ways and that they use very similar language to explain these concepts. Another example might be fitness blogs or churches’ Facebook posts. These too will be unique, having particular qualities that are unique that that more narrowed genre.

The point is that if you are confronted with a genre that you aren’t familiar with—as will probably happen at some point—then you can easily gather information from other examples in that genre and evaluate which elements seem to define it. What types of content are typical? What about graphic elements? Tone of voice? Design elements? Organizational structures? Once you understand the concept of genre, then you can evaluate new forms of writing and apply those genre conventions with confidence.