Killer Web Content: Make the Sale, Deliver the Service, Build the Brand

by Gerry McGovern

Written by an internationally-acclaimed specialist in the field, Killer Web Content gives you the strategies and practical techniques you need to make your website really work for you. On the Internet, if you're not read, you're dead. Killer Web Content is an accessible, concise, and practical guide to the strategies and techniques you need to get the very best out of your online content. This book helps readers
- provide visitors to their website with the right content at just the right time
- write compelling Web content that users really respond to and want more of
- make sure their website has the best possible chance of getting into the first page of search results
- understand the benefits of blogs, RSS, and e-mail newsletters Web content is an increasingly important asset. It helps sell products and deliver services. From software companies to universities to governments, online content is something that has to be done right.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Reference, Writing, Web

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction for how to write more effectively for the web.

Especially liked the concept of finding your patrons/users/clients "carewords". I am still struggling to get an idea of what patrons care about and how they would describe it in words.

Wish there were a newer edition, however.

Useful advice:

-Read every page of your website at least every 12 months.
-Define your customers carewords and then use them in your content.
-Use "you" instead of "we". Be sure that all of your content is written from the point of view of your customer.
-Create reader "personas" and write content for them.
-Make sure your content is caring, compelling, clean, complete, concise and correct.
-The top left, first half of the first sentence in a paragraph is the most important. The first sentence of the second paragraph is the second most important.
-End content with a call to action.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2018 this 2006 book is outdated. 3 stars because many of the things he said back then are still true. However, it is outdated because these ideas, maybe even his ideas (who knows?), have spread far and wide and have become common sense.

[Robert Bogue · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing content is easy. Well at least it is for me. I learned how to become a production writer while I was working full-time at a consulting company before I restarted my company. I was responsible for 50 articles a year for a newsletter for TechRepublic.com (one a week). At the same time I was still writing for Developer.com and other publications. I was working full time and cranking out articles at the rate of over 75 per year. It was a crazy time and like a few other times in my life, sleep wasn’t easy to come by in large quantities. However, I learned how to make sure I was writing – and writing reasonable quality stuff – every day. So when it came to needing to rebuild my web sites I thought writing content would be the easy part. I mean how hard could it be?

Click here to read the full review

[Yana Kiselyova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorites:

Originally, press releases were not meant to be published.

Jeff Beroz (Amazon.com): Branding is what people say about you when you leave the room.

Publish a website you can manage.

You need to be productive, not busy, as you will increasingly be measured by the results you deliver, not the time you’ve spent delivering them.

Content needs to drive action.

You can’t have great content if you don’t have great thinking.

Words drive actions on the Web.

The essence oа great publishing is about getting the right content to the right person at the right time – and making a profit out of it.

If nobody reads you’re dead.

All great websites are fueled by great content.

Publish or perish.

Commerce is selling with people. E-commerce is selling with content.

[Matty Pants · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gerry McGovern does a good job of identifying the major differences between writing online and offline copy. He also touches on the basics of formatting and publishing search-friendly documents to the Web. Certain minor inaccuracies in the book regarding search engine optimization (SEO) are compensated by how he addresses Web findability in general; alongside usability.

3.5 stars from me.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have learned that your site needs "care words." These are words that your potential customers would enter when doing a search. I have also learned more about headings, titles and tags that help make your site more visible to the spiders and robots.

[Kristeen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It came free with the Customer-Centric Websites masterclass.

[Joanne Dickinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used to help develop strategies and techniques for compelling web content.

[Yasheve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must Read for anyone using the Internet as an income stream.

[Mark]

It's for work, but I'm really liking it (geek, that I am).