Content First: Technology Second. How to Create Great Web Content. A Seminar by Gerry McGovern, Part 2. July 16, 2003

The notes for this Workshop were taken by Laura Larsson, Cedar Collaboration. This article is the second of three that will describe Gerry’s advice for creating great Web content.

Introduction to the Speaker

Gerry McGovern, well-known content and Web guru, gave a day-long workshop titled, “Content First: Technology Second. How to Create Great Web Content” at Children’s Hospital in Seattle on July 16, 2003. Gerry has his own Web site, http://www.gerrymcgovern.com , is an author of two books (note 1) and numerous articles, and writes a weekly newsletter called, “New Thinking” that comes out every Sunday night (note 2).

His “New Thinking” newsletter is a discussion of how important content and writing is. Recent issues have dealt with the “Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing,” and “What’s Important to Measure on Your Web site.” “New Thinking” is a definite must-subscribe if you are interested in writing for the Web.

Principles of Web Design

• Design for the long term. By and large people do not like change so that the more consistent you are the better.
• Do NOT redesign your site because you’re bored with it. This often happens and can cause confusion on the part of your visitors. Often the navigation gets changed leading to irritation.
• Signage is important. Most navigation is signage
.
• Content must be kept fresh. Renew your content on a regular schedule (especially news).
• Base your site on functionality.
• Develop and maintain a manual with a publishing guide. The Web team should define the publishing processes. This saves time. You really want an efficient, streamlined process and the manual really helps keep processes streamlined.
• Look at well-designed Web sites. We examined examples of excellent Web sites, including Microsoft's. He says that the MS site has sharp copy. All the audiences are defined. Amazon’s site is really busy, but you can still find what you want.
• Clutter is an inevitable function of the growth of the Internet. The Amazon site is quite cluttered but clutter at Amazon is so well-organized that you can find what you want. The use of tabs helps organize content. Later on we examined the Amazon site in depth so that we could determine what elements made it easy to find things.
• Use of a search engine vs drilling down through the navigation. Most people drill down. (I mostly use the search engine to locate content but that is not the norm).
• Mental models. These days the following format seems to apply: The navigation bar is on the left. The home link is on the top left along with the logo; the search engine on the top right. [There is a growing trend to placing navigation bars on the right-hand side.] People get used to knowing where to move their mouse to find those navigation elements.

Publishing processes

1. Who is your reader? (McGovern doesn't like the term ‘user’ or ‘hits’. He says it reminds him too much of the drug culture). Who is the reader that will really benefit from your content – and whose consumption will really benefit the organization? (This is a really important question. McGovern discussed Intranets and their importance to staff and management and mentioned that as much care should be taken to organize the Intranet as the Internet. He recommended that Web managers segment the staff and focus on the segments to maximize access to the content. More about segmenting later on).

2. Why should they go to your site? Are their current reading needs fulfilled? Ask why should they read your content instead of someone else's. Why should they trust you? This is all part of knowing your audience.

3. Types of readers. There will usually be a number of target readers. It’s important to isolate and prioritize them. For any site there will likely be 5 groups that you will want to focus on. You must identify them first before creating content. These folks will bring the most attention/money to your site.

We did an exercise to discuss reader types for Children’s Hospital (where the workshop took place). People from the audience responded to him with their suggestions about reader types. McGovern said there is no right or wrong answer to the question of reader types - but we should know who our reader types are.

In a second exercise he asked us to imagine that we only had 100 hours to create content for these five groups. He asked us to prioritize and assign the total number of hours we would assign to creating content for the various groups.

The audience suggested who might be very important to the Hospital: investors/donors, patients or families, health care providers, job seekers, community. McGovern asked if we wanted to count on our visitors to pay or contribute to the revenue source. If Children's does, then Children’s should lock Web content to its business model and not spend time on non-revenue generating segments.

4. Segmentation. He emphasized that we understand just how important the real-estate is on the front page. It is precious space. He said it is not about traffic or volume. It’s about targeting the right audience, the target audience. The space "above-the-fold" is especially valuable.

5. Spreading yourself too thin is expensive. McGovern said that Web surveys are not very successful. Instead, go out into the community you serve and ask what is important to them. If you go beyond 5 audiences you become too diffused. You need a core profile of each of the 5 groups. He suggested that we create a poster and put a picture on it. Put a face on your audience. In the profile put down 5-10 things that that group wants and stick with those.

When you’re writing, never lead with your entity's name but with the condition/procedure/issue. For example, “Heart Surgery @ Children's” or 50% off on our anniversary, not "Children's Employs Best Health Educator". People what to know what's in it for them. Media people want prepackaged content for articles, profile builders

6. Is there a segment of your site that wastes people’s time? Find it and fix it. He used the example of an out-of-date staff directory which is a real annoyance to anyone trying to find staff at your organization.

7. You want your site to be a productivity driver. If someone with a high salary loses time trying to find some fact on your site, the organization loses productivity. This can be expensive if multiplied by the number of staff at your institution. Think about ROI; e.g., the administrator's secretary must be able to find content. The loss of her time costs the organization money, too. The Staff Directory should be a first priority and should always be kept up-to-date!

8. Segment, target and focus for staff as well as the community.

9. The Web site is not a data repository. The content should be active, not a storage place for old content.

Identify your content

What’s the killer content? He gave us the example of killer content in Irish newspapers. It’s the death notices. Death notices are important in Ireland because attending funerals is something a community does.

Value of Content. 30% of MS content is never accessed even once. Remember the 80/20 rule. Focus on the unique content, the core content, for your organization. If you don’t focus on your audience, you publish for everyone. Is a repeat visitor link really necessary (on the Children's site)? Web team should make a decision as to what should be on the Web site.

Information doesn’t last forever. For example, articles about construction going on at your workplace will only be valid as long as the construction is incomplete - at most a few years - and then will become unimportant. Now it is important but not later. Remove the old articles when out-dated or think about alternative ways of making the information available on the Web site. Would an email update work better to notify patients of construction changes rather than using precious Web space?

Do not put up content that visitors SHOULD read but what they need. They will not read it.

Graphics. There should be some link between the graphics and the content. Don't use irrelevant images. People are impatient and do not want to wait as large graphics download s..l..o..w..l..y.

Branding. Branding does not equal image. Your logo is not marketing. The brand on a Web site is that a reader looked for content and found it. Help people find what they want. People generally come with an objective in mind. He gave the example of Aer Lingus whose original site had information on pilots and stewardesses and airplanes. People don’t care about seeing airplanes and staff, they want to know about specials and deals. (What's in it for me?)

The Web is not a murder mystery. Make it easy to find content. Ask, “What is the driving content? And provide it.

Publication schedule. Most publications have a schedule: daily, weekly, monthly. Whatever it is, stick to it. The Web site is like a publication. Professional processes start to occur when you have a schedule. When you have a schedule, then you can start commissioning stories.

He talked about how 4/10 lead stories should go to patients and families (of Children's) and how the lead story should change each week. McGovern emphasized how important it is to get in control of your publishing schedule and content. Only request content for your audiences.

Deadlines. If you have a 10:00am deadline you MUST get your content up at 10am! This is professionalism. You must have the content up at a specific time and date if you say you will. Habitual behavior on your part means people check back. They must also know when the content goes up. If you do not have deadlines it leads to “feast or famine” publishing. These suggestions are how professional organizations have moved their content from creation to publication for hundreds of years in the print publishing arena.

Calendar of Events. Create a spreadsheet with Title | Description | Author | Due date so that you know when events will be occurring. If you know you are getting new equipment in October, write a teaser story in August on the new equipment and the full story in October to promote the use of the equipment.

Understand that writers never produce on time. With deadlines you can put pressure on the writer to get the content in on time.

Search engines. Visitors are more likely to re-search your site if you change the content regularly. McGovern says he updates his newsletter every Sunday evening without fail on his site.

Fresh content. In addition, Search engines watch for ‘fresh’ content. He showed us an example of how an article on information architecture written by him was indexed by Google four days after it appeared because that is programmed in to the search robot. His content shows up when people search the search engine. This is a good thing because it helps market him and his consulting company.

Identify your Software Tools.

Try to enhance the experience of the reader. Allow the reader to access content in a faster, more efficient manner. Allow the reader to collaborate.

Creating Content

The following graphic describes the process of creating content.

Linking to other content. It’s possible to link to a site with great information, but if you link too much on one site, it might be a copyright issue.

Bring in professional freelancers to interview someone who can’t write but who does great things. Freelancers also show you how to write professionally. A writer + expert = an article. The freelancer can translate what the person does and make it interesting and accessible.

If you don’t have a style and tone you cannot have a unified public with a definite identity. A Glossary of common terms is helpful. Authors must have a common dictionary and style guide. Consistency is really important.

Can you use the same style guide on the Web that you would use to write papers? No. It’s about 50% different. Paragraphs are shorter, use a sans serif font, dashes are longer, use of lists, shorter articles. You can reuse content from print publishing to the Web but it must be rewritten. Think about group vs single stories. Prioritizing is important.

Copyright and legal issues. Copyright issues include: Legal issues, accuracy and fact issues, and specific legal conditions.

Privacy. Must have a privacy policy near any newsletter subscription form that outlines what you will and will not do with their names.

Editing Content. This graphic shows how the editing process functions.

He discussed how important the editor is in the publishing process. The editor looks at content. The copy editor corrects spelling, commas. Mentally copyediting is different from editing.If you have to do both, do the different functions at separate times so that you don't confuse them.

Reviewing Content. The graphic below illustrates the interactions involved in reviewing (and removing) content.

Publish only what you can manage.

The editor should ask: Is there content on the site that this new content replaces?

Author Review. The editor should ask authors to review their content periodically.

Expiration Date.Tell's you when to remove content.

Periodic Review. Once a year every piece of content should be read because content goes out of date. Need a thorough check of your Web site. Otherwise it makes you look bad if you have dated content.

Regular Review. Check out the critical content. Check functions and processes to make sure they work. Correct erroneous content. The process is shown in the graphic below.

Content speaks about you. If you find a serious error, do a correction. Publish the information in a newsletter.

Libel/Legal. This is rare. The faster you take the libelous content down the better.

Publishing Content. People want limited choice! (Who looks at the 50,000th search hit? Who looks at everything on the Microsoft Site?) Microsoft has segmented content: Home and entertainment, Technical resources, Business agility, and a lead story.

Subscription-based publishing. It is hard to bring people back to your site. The Web is a ‘pull medium’. If you don’t have a subscription strategy, you don’t really have a publication. Use your Web site + email in conjunction; e.g. email newsletter. Target the newsletter to specific audiences; this lets greater lock-in to the relationship. Segmented groups + targeted content is critical; e.g., Fortune has 825,000 subscriptions but only 75K sold on news stands.

Newsletter content. Short newsletters with punchy topic headings. Use the title + short description along with a link to the content.

All good publishers have a subscription service. Tell people what they’ll be getting. Be sure that it is Opt-in; i.e., enter your email address to get on the mailing list.

Reader interaction and feedback. Give the reader time to respond. Use a variety of interactions. Interaction and feedback can improve satisfaction. Feedback improves quality control. Think of criticisms as being positive rather than negative (even if the person's feedback is angry. Likely they are frustrated with navigating through your site).

Promoting Content. Estimates of over 600 BILLION documents on the Web. How will your document stand out? Marketing. McGovern reminded us that Hollywood spends $47 M to make a movie and $31M to promote it. How do you market your Web site?

Readership cost for a document that cost $5000 (payment to author + editing, production, images, etc). The costs are as follows:

• $5000 if no one looks at/reads it
• $500 if 10 people look at the document
• $50 if 100 people look at it
• $5 if 1000 people look at it

Promotion Strategies.

Your home page should sell. Must get people to your home page and get them to return.
Handling search engines/robots. Do you write for the search engines? (metatags, brief description)
Banners don’t work. Buy keyword ads (the ones you see off on the right when you search using Google.
Email signature files. Every employee's sig file should contain your URL. Cheap. Always there. People do look at them.
Offline strategies to remind people of your Web site. Use the cafeteria to promote your Intranet. Promotions.
Phone hold. On phone calls, when someone is on hold, give them the URL of your Web site and some information about it.
Cross promotions. Share content with partners.
Newsletters. Write articles about your Web site.
Promos. Promotions work on the Intranet. Get glitz and energy.
Links. Single most important thing. Get everyone to point to you as this improves your rating on the search engines. Linking back to you improves your ranking. Embedded word of mouth to maximize links to your site – but, you must have a strategy for this.
Tools. Alexa.com, software applications that tell you who is linking to you. Your site must be on the first two pages in the search engine for your site to exist.

Publishing team.
McGovern showed us a graphic of the publishing team (not included) which includes the Editorial function and the Production function. Whoever controls the content controls the Web site.

What’s the best tool the editor can have? A nose for knowing what works and what doesn’t. The editor must know the audience and what content they want. What keeps an editor awake at night? These issues: What is the right content? Right reader? Right time? Right cost?

Publishing Measurables. Metrics are super important. It’s not just measuring but measuring the right stuff and understanding it.

Information flows. A Web site is about self service.

Speed, convenience and cheap. Faster and more convenient is important. If your Intranet is not organized staff will not use it. The Intranet must be even faster. McGovern gave this example: if John finds the information in 10 minutes vs 30 minutes the ROI to the company increases. Reminded us that it is important not to develop content that never gets used.

McGovern showed us a listing of a few of the cost reductions that can be accrued by using the Web to collect data.

Note: This table is severely truncated from the list McGovern showed us but it gives the overall idea of cost reductions using the Web to collect data.

Measuring Value: The Laptop and the Report. He described the average cost of a report as being around $4,000 and a Laptop cost of about $2,000. Yet laptops get much more care than a report. McGovern asked rhetorically why this was.

Publication Process Measurables

There are many measurables. It's hard to know what's important if you haven't measured it first. Here are some things McGovern suggested we measure.

Time-to-publish. How quickly is content getting published on the Web site?
How is individual performance to be measured? If Mary’s content is read 10X as much as someone else's how is she rewarded? Not at all, extensively? You want the good writers to publish, not the others.
How many new documents were published on the Web? Just a count.
Is the publishing schedule being adhered to? What percentage of the time?
How well does a sample of these [Web] documents reflect the public style & tone? If you do not want to pay attention to the style guide and be an independent author, write a blog.
Out-of-date content should be removed quickly. How often does this happen?
Metadata is important. What percentage of your content has metadata?
Reader-created content must be moderated properly.
Reader queries must be responded to. What percentage of reader queries are responded to within 24 hours? 48 hours?
Must know how many unique people visited the site. Use IP addresses.
Must also know how many visits are unique vs repeat. Which part of your site is getting the most visits?
How many page impressions/views were there?
What were the 10 most popular parts/documents on the Web site?
How many new subscribers were added to the subscriber services? And, how many subscribers were lost?

Web sites are moving from: Data storage --> Content --> Web publishing

Develop a 5 year plan. Write quality content = long term success.

Note 1: Gerry's books are listed below and are worth reading cover to cover.

McGovern, Gerry and Rob Norton. Content Critical: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Hi-Quality Web Content. New York: Prentice-Hall, 2002.
Amazon | McGovern

McGovern, Gerry, Rob Norton, and Catherine O'Dowd . The Web Content Style Guide: An Essential Reference for Online Writers, Editors and Managers. New York: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Amazon | McGovern

Note 2: Subscribe to Gerry's "New Thinking" newsletter by going to this link: New Thinking