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Writing for Humans and Robots: The New Rules of Content Style
Your audience’s time and interest are in low supply. Connect with your reader faster while reducing energy wasted on edits. Writing for a global internet audience presents many challenges. The most pressing is writing for both humans and search engine spider robots. Communicating with both involves a thoughtful content strategy and writing style guide that doesn’t compromise either user’s needs. It’s difficult to write and design with consistent style and formatting without concrete content rules to follow. Whether you’re a seasoned writer, new to the craft, or trying to get your team to follow a uniform approach—this book can serve as the foundation for building a coherent, on-brand reader experience with your content creation efforts. By setting actionable standards, you’ll improve the strength of your message and professional reputation to help achieve your business goals. Founder and CEO of The Blogsmith content agency, Maddy Osman, wrote Writing for Humans and Robots as a modern-day homage to The Elements of Style for content creators, also expanding on the AP Stylebook's rules to address the unique needs of an online audience. In this book and style guide reference, you’ll learn how to balance optimizing for search engines while appealing to human readers in terms …and much more, with 22 chapters total.
244 pages, Paperback
Published July 16, 2022
26 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Maddy Osman
1 book9 followersMaddy Osman is a digital native with a decade-long devotion to creating engaging, accessible, and relevant content. After teaching herself web design at age 11, she found her true passion in content creation—learning the intricacies while transitioning from technical to creative SEO marketer. Maddy's journey from freelance writer to founder and CEO of The Blogsmith yielded numerous insights to share about content creation for enterprise B2B technology brands. She believes in finding win-win situations for brands, readers, and robots—translated into actionable guidance throughout this book.
In Writing for Humans and Robots, Maddy gives a nod to editors and style mentors she’s worked with at brands like Automattic, HubSpot, Adobe, Wix, and Trello. After benefitting from their thoughtful feedback, she has assembled this comprehensive guide to writing for the web in an attempt to pay it forward and create better quality content that’s inclusive and accessible to readers.
Maddy has been recognized as one of BuzzSumo’s Top 100 Content Marketers and The Write Life’s 100 Best Websites for Writers. She has spoken for audiences at WordCamp US, SearchCon, and Denver Startup Week. When taking breaks from the digital world, Maddy enjoys cooking, reading, and exploring the world, but she is most content at home in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, Dan, and their pooch, Lola.
In Writing for Humans and Robots, Maddy gives a nod to editors and style mentors she’s worked with at brands like Automattic, HubSpot, Adobe, Wix, and Trello. After benefitting from their thoughtful feedback, she has assembled this comprehensive guide to writing for the web in an attempt to pay it forward and create better quality content that’s inclusive and accessible to readers.
Maddy has been recognized as one of BuzzSumo’s Top 100 Content Marketers and The Write Life’s 100 Best Websites for Writers. She has spoken for audiences at WordCamp US, SearchCon, and Denver Startup Week. When taking breaks from the digital world, Maddy enjoys cooking, reading, and exploring the world, but she is most content at home in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, Dan, and their pooch, Lola.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 18, 2022
A great writing style guide to help you write the best content for the digital world. Utilize this book as your web style guide as you create content for your webpage, social posts and other digital platforms.
February 13, 2023
TL;DR version: I loved it. It's a valuable reference book for web content writers.
As an ESL writer, Elements of style serves as a great foundation. You can read Dreyer's English to fill the gaps and strengthen your writing prose. Afterward, you can spice it up in style by reading Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style.
That's typically enough to get you started as a writer, given you have a decent grasp of the basics of English.
However, your learning process shouldn't end. Depending on the goals, you can always benefit from relevant reference material.
For instance, if you're a fiction writer, Stephen King's On Writing may be of tremendous help.
Unfortunately, when I started writing, I couldn't find a similar reference book (I love reading books to develop my skills) for web content. I had to learn by experience — and sometimes via bad feedback from clients.
Maddy Osman's Writing for humans and robots seems to fill that gap. While there's some guidance to help new writers, the book primarily focuses on practical advice for intermediate and expert writers looking to hone their craft. In particular, Maddy's insights might help you transition from a mere writer to a writer who knows how to balance the needs of humans and robots.
As an ESL writer, Elements of style serves as a great foundation. You can read Dreyer's English to fill the gaps and strengthen your writing prose. Afterward, you can spice it up in style by reading Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style.
That's typically enough to get you started as a writer, given you have a decent grasp of the basics of English.
However, your learning process shouldn't end. Depending on the goals, you can always benefit from relevant reference material.
For instance, if you're a fiction writer, Stephen King's On Writing may be of tremendous help.
Unfortunately, when I started writing, I couldn't find a similar reference book (I love reading books to develop my skills) for web content. I had to learn by experience — and sometimes via bad feedback from clients.
Maddy Osman's Writing for humans and robots seems to fill that gap. While there's some guidance to help new writers, the book primarily focuses on practical advice for intermediate and expert writers looking to hone their craft. In particular, Maddy's insights might help you transition from a mere writer to a writer who knows how to balance the needs of humans and robots.
February 13, 2023
One of the most challenging aspects of content writing today is balancing the needs of both humans and search engines. Maddy's book captures this balance brilliantly and provides a clear path to achieve it.
If you're looking to create content that engages your audience while also optimizing for search engines, this book is a must-read!
If you're looking to create content that engages your audience while also optimizing for search engines, this book is a must-read!
February 16, 2023
This book is a pure gem. I refer to it whenever I write content for my clients or blog. It's a fantastic writing style guide to help you craft content that appeals to humans and Google bots. I highly recommend this book to every SEO writer.
February 8, 2023
An excellent guide to writing content that engages the mind while also ranking well for today's search engines.
10/10 would recommend!
10/10 would recommend!
February 12, 2023
A must-read if you're writing for the digital space!
September 10, 2022
Great resource for improving SEO and creating professional content for the online space.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews