The elements of editing, which include (but are not limited to) formatting, images, text, videos, and audio recordings, is a fairly complex topic. Let me lay out some of the areas to consider here and then lay out some further reading if the above doesn’t make sense to you.

Formatting

To begin with, formatting is all about how you present and explain the information presented. In a nutshell, formatting refers to the types of information you want to be included at the top of your article. This is done using the following guidelines:

Header (and other headings)

Content and sub-headings with heading tags (example 1, 2)

Subject Headings

The heading tags (example 1 and 2) refer to the information inside your article. This is important since this can affect how many people find you when scrolling through a page or searching on Google. If you do not properly include your heading tags, people won’t know what to click and what to miss. So don’t be stupid.

To add a head heading to your article, use the HTML

tag. Remember this is not about how you write your text, it’s more about its placement in order to make your information easier to read for others (example 1, 2).

If the following is not in the text:

A brief summary of the subject that you want to emphasize (example: “The New Health Care Reform”)

Use of hyperlinks and hypertext links are also very important when it comes to a formatting template. When people search in a web search engine on a given subject, they don’t see all the same things all the time. They also have different tastes, especially at different times in their lives, and so they have a variety of thoughts and experiences when searching. So even if a link or hyperlink is included in your body of text, it isn’t necessarily relevant to everyone’s experience.

Hyperlinks are a great way to tell people what the source is of the information they are searching for as well as how to find that information, while hypertext links are a way to give an extra visual hint at something you want them to know. They can be used in a few different ways:

Heading tags with the keyword search term (example: “The New Health Care Reform” followed by a “?” for a question mark)

The keyword search term plus other text to show readers what the word means