Content Critical: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through High-Quality Web Content [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The overall premise is that the job of producing and running a web site has a lot in common with traditional paper publishing. Central to this idea, and the inspiration for the title, is that whatever the site, people actually visit it to read words. Not to look at pictures. Not to admire layout or coo at dynamic navigation menus. To find and read content. Everything else is at best irrelevant, at worst a distracting nuisance or even a reason to leave the site completely.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, and generally follow with the recommendations that the author makes about how to encourage and profit from this understanding: keep things simple, short, and fresh; understand your readers; make it easy to find stuff; treat editing and publishing as key business functions and so on.

What I find slightly disappointing is that the book itself doesn't entirely embody these values. The style is repetitive and often long-winded. As a well-edited web site or a conference presentation this would pack a much more powerful punch. I felt I understood the essential message quite early in the book, and finished reading it mostly out of duty.

Gerry McGovern, through his internet newsletter, New Thinking, has been on a consistent crusade to get all of us to recognize the working content of a web site is words (effective messages) and that website visitors are readers. The book examines this reality in considerable detail and contains many helpful suggestions for improving the effectiveness of website investments

The writers make the point that a website is essentially a publication, and needs to be managed in the same sense. The site publisher needs an involved editor, and should use skilled writers----and should not leave content to the nearly obsolete "webmaster"

The authors make the point that in many cases the words in a web site are not written with needs of the reader in mind and fail to get the desired response. Their message as too "the seven things readers want from your web site" is a real gem. These are:

1. Readers want to be able to find things.
2. Readers want your advice.
3. Readers want up-to-date, quality content
4. Readers want relevant and straightforward content.
5. Readers want to do things
6. Readers want to interact
7. Readers want Privacy.

Two passages from the book are effective summaries of its main message,

"Remember that the reader is king of the Web, and that everything about your website needs to be done with the reader in mind, is the key to online success.
If you know your readers, know how they behave in our information-literate society, and know the seven things they want from your website, you'll be well on your way to success. Remember the best word that sums up the online reader is - impatient".

"Few investments in website design are as critical - and as difficult - as planning, testing and implementing a navigation systems that's simple, intuitive and comprehensive enough to serve readers. ..........Readers like a variety of ways to navigate through a website. Make sure you include a wide enough range of navigation options to account for different readers' habits and tastes".

The book is filled with clear thinking, practical advice and suggestions. It is an absorbing read, worth your time and money.

It deals with the fundamentals of web site content; its purpose, its design, its creation. Readers of McGovern's weekly newsletter won't be surprised by the content, themes or style of the book. It is direct, business-like, sometimes humorous and always well argued.

Content Critical is the best non-technical book on the subject of web content that I have come across to date. It is comprehensive and well structured. It demonstrates the authors' long fascination with the Internet as a publishing medium as well as their advocacy of information architecture as a professional discipline.

Content Critical has an important message and presents it according to its own rules and guidelines.

Content Critical analyses the benefits and costs of content with a model for comparing the cost of content to its reach and value.

It is easy to forget when we are surrounded by technological marvels that great content is still difficult and expensive to produce. The proliferation of television channels offering cheap to produce content is clear evidence of that.

The central chapters provide checklists and examples for the principles on which the majority of content rests. Topics include:
*Creating content and the importance of editorial (since `even the best writer needs an editor')
*Information architecture as the foundation upon which a web site is built and developed
*Principles for good navigation design
*Content layout and design.

Content Critical is particularly scathing about headlines and summaries: `Most headings and summaries on the Internet are poor. Headings often give you very little clue as to what the document is actually about.' Nor does it pull its punches when it comes to common stupidities: `At all costs avoid "intro" or "splash" pages. They are a total waste of time.'

The final chapters cover building a web site production team and the publishing strategies required if an organisation is to treat content as a high-value asset rather than as a commodity.

Content Critical can be summed up by a recent Gerry McGovern newsletter: `Time is our scarcest resource. The less time we have the more our attention span contracts. Write simply. Keep headings, summaries, sentences, paragraphs and documents short. Get to the point. Then stop.'