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.

I just got back from dinner with web content guru Gerry McGovern. I so enjoy our conversations; Gerry is such a smart guy. (BTW, hire him if you have a website or intranet and you want to learn how to make the content better). One of the many things we discussed was the concept of living a busy but unproductive life. So much of our lives is spent being "busy" but not terribly productive. It's an easy trap to fall into. I found in one of his past newsletters some wise words from Gerry on the topic of being busy:

"How often have you claimed to be 'too busy?' What exactly does that mean? For me it's an excuse. It means that I didn't do something because it just wasn't important enough for me to do. Or else it means I did something quickly, being too busy to do it right.

Being too busy is never an excuse. There have been 24 hours in a day for a long time now. There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, seven days in a week. If you can't manage your own time, you shouldn't be allowed manage anyone else's.

Those who are always too busy are always on the phone. They're always on the Internet. Always firing off emails. Always flicking channels. Always late for meetings. Never get their reports in on time. Never can give you any time. Always communicating. Always communicating."

If only they'd stop and think sometimes.

This evening Gerry shared with me this quote from Edward de Bono: "Think slowly." He goes on to say: if you’re lucky, you may find one big idea during your lifetime. So, take your time because you’ve got plenty of time.

For me, what really puts this rat race called life into perspective is the following quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“To laugh often and much
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children
To earn the appreciation of honest critics, and to endure the betrayal of false friends,
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition
To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived,
This is to have succeeded�

Today I had the pleasure to hear web content guru Gerry McGovern speak at a full-day workshop in Wellington, New Zealand. He's got to be one of the very best speakers I've ever heard! His course material, his sense of humor, his thought-provoking insights, and especially his Irish accent — had everyone in the audience mesmerized. Here's a sampling of the day's take-aways:

• Action vs. reaction: If a site visitor's action results in a reaction from your web site that has a wait time exceeding that of the action, the visitor will become frustrated. That frustration will build as more . For example, clicking on the File menu tab only takes a second, so the time it takes for the menubar to appear underneath should take no more than a second.
• 80/20 rule of content: For many sites, less than 20% of the site content accounts for over 80% of the pageviews. With Microsoft.com it was 1% of their content accounted for 99% of the pageviews. In fact, 35% of their pages had never been viewed! That's well over a million pages of content that people at Microsoft worked hard to write ? for nothing. Focus your efforts on the copy that will be read, not on the copy that won't.
• Columns: Readers use their peripheral vision to keep track of the beginning of the next line down while they are reading across a line. So with text that has a long linewidth, it becomes difficult to read. Gerry recommends a three column format, with 20% or so of the width going to the first column (use this column for navigation), 60% or so dedicated to the middle column, and another 20% or so for the right hand column.
• Call for action: Always end your pages with a clear action for the reader to take. Never leave the reader hanging, wondering what to do next. The center column at the end of the body copy is a critical piece of real estate for these calls for action.
• Links in copy: According to Gerry, links in the middle of body copy distracts the readers making it difficult for them to read the paragraph, and it connotes "hey, click on me... the rest of this text is really boring!" Instead of embedding links within the body copy, consider using the right hand column for the related links. If there are important links there that take the reader to the "next step," also repeat them at underneath the body copy in the center column.
• Simplicity: Einstein purportedly was quoted as saying "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." Apply this idea to your web copy. Keep your copy as short and simple as possible. People tend not to read long copy on the web. With a 300 word page, 50% will read it to the end; 500 words, 20%; 1000 words, 5%. Gerry recommends headings of 4 to 8 words, summaries of 30 to 50 words, sentences of 15 to 20 words, and paragraphs of 40 to 70 words.
• "Kill your darlings": William Faulkner once said this. If there's a particular expression or way of saying something that you're particularly fond of, delete it from your copy, because you're probably overusing it.

Gerry covered so much more than this, but it would take a book to cover it all. Oh, wait a minute... there is a book covering it all. Buy Gerry's book, Content Critical.