I had the privilege of interviewing web content guru Gerry McGovern this week. Gerry shared some real gems. Here are a few highlights...

Gerry says the biggest mistake that companies make in regards to their website content is thinking that customers care one little bit about the company.

"Customers care about themselves, their loved ones and their community. They hate websites that are organization-centric. And how do you know if you have an organization-centric website? If any of your sentences or headings begin with the name of your organization. Stop talking about yourself. The customer knows who you are. They're at your website. There's a big fat logo at the top of the page screaming out your name. You've already got their attention. Now's the time to give them some attention."

Gerry says the best way to be customer-centric is to talk about benefits -- in the second person -- YOU. Paint a picture for your customer. Speak their language. Use their words. Stand where they stand. Feel what they feel. Forget you're part of the organization and think like the customer.

Gerry then went on to share his own experiences as the leader of an agency with over 100 staff in the dotcom heydey, then as a solo consultant, and the lessons he has learned along the way.  He also has something to say about blogging. But mostly, he talked about Content. Content is King.

Read the full interview.

Writing articles is a great way to improve your search engine positioning – in fact some of the top referring keywords come from articles.

But do they produce leads? Possibly not, but articles are great for promoting your brand. You will be quoted in everything from college papers, class projects, theses, and blogs. Many of these will link back to you. Spiders will visit your site looking for new content. Combine it with RSS and you have a powerful way of syndicating those articles globally.

SearchEnginePosition's Rob Sullivan has written an interesting article about his own experience, which you can read here.

Title tags are one of the easiest and biggest impact things you can do for SEO. Not only that, title tags are also very effective in enticing the searcher to click on your listing rather than someone else's.

To maximize that clickthrough here are three quick and easy tips:

• Include a call-to-action like "Buy now" or "Free shipping"
• Form a question
• Don't repeat keyword phrases. Not only does that look redundant from the searcher's perspective but it also looks like keyword stuffing from the search engine's perspective.

A good creative brief is essential to a successful website development project. The creative brief lays out the proposed visual design directions to explore, the objectives of the upcoming creative exploration, the audience, the "story" the site should tell, the tone and imagery that the site should take on.

Nick Usborne, author of the excellent book Net Words, suggests in his most recent issue of the ExcessVoice newsletter that you incorporate the following elements into your creative brief:

1. Description of task
This needs to be a complete description of the writing task involved.

2. Background on product/company
The copywriter will usually NOT be as “up-to-speed� as the account management group. It is easy to assume the writer has in-depth knowledge that he or she does not have.

So it’s important that the writer is given “too much� background information on the client and the product or service being written about.

3. Audience description
The fastest way to undermine the ability of a copywriter to do a good job is to deprive him or her of a crystal clear image of the target audience.

The writer needs to feel an intimate understanding of what the audience wants, needs and desires. That understanding needs to be of a depth that it allows the writer to picture clearly and accurately an individual within the target group.

The writer should be able to close her eyes, see the person, picture his home and yard, know how he likes to spend his free time and understand what most excites and scares him in life.

4. Principal purpose of the communication
Again, this is extremely important. Many a well-written piece of advertising has failed to deliver, simply because the writer was never given a clear view of what that “deliverable� really was.

What is the principal purpose of this email, web page, newsletter?

The more precisely this question can be answered, the better the copywriter will be able to write a clear, sharp communication that stays on purpose from the first word to the last.

5. Timeline
Great copy cannot be written in an hour. The assimilation of background information, a growing understanding of the audience at the individual level and the process of writing itself is a creative process when done well. It takes time.

The first draft is never the best draft. Nor the second. As a result, copywriters need to be given sufficient warning of an upcoming job and be provided with enough time to do the job well.