McGovern Publishing Manual
You've got a large website or series of websites. You've got distributed publishing: lots of authors and editors. You need a way to manage all this content professionally. The McGovern Publishing Manual is for you.Management is about discovering and implementing the best way. Content management is about identifying the killer web content and maximizing its value. For a large website with distributed publishing, a Publishing Manual is an essential part of the content manager's toolkit.
The following are the key sections in the McGovern Publishing Manual:
- Business case justification
- Creating content
- Editing content
- Publishing and promoting content
- Publishing team
- Metrics
- Metadata and classification
- Navigation
- Search
- Layout and graphic design
- Web writing and style guide
- A-Z of common usage
Business case justification
Tools like a business case justification questionnaire encourage managers to clearly think about the true value their website-or section of a website-is delivering to the organization.A business case justification questionnaire will be provided for any new websites/sections. There will be a need to show how web content is delivering value on an ongoing basis. A business value questionnaire and scorecard will be developed that managers will have to fill out on an annual basis.
Creating content
Here, a systematic approach to content creation will be developed, with a particular stress on establishing an effective commissioning process. Often, websites become a repository for content that is already published in print. People wait for print content to arrive and then put it up on the site. A website that follows this approach fails to deliver maximum value. Only web content that delivers value should be published.Editing content
Best practice in editing and copy-editing content to ensure minimum quality standards will be established. A major area where web editing tends to suffer is when it comes to reviewing already published content. Here is a sample of review processes that will be detailed:- New content: Before editors publish new content on the website they must review whether there is older content already published that this new content replaces. If so, they must remove this old content. This is mandatory.
- Periodic review: This is where all content gets systematically reviewed. A periodic review should occur at least once a year. This is mandatory.
- Regular review: There will be certain critical content on your website that you must make sure is always accurate. Such content should be reviewed at least once per month. Other things that require monthly checking are: Search engine; Applications; Subscription processes; Links
Publishing and promoting content
The areas that will be dealt with here are as follows:- Homepage management: First impressions count. The homepage is by far the most important page on your website. The biggest mistake made by most homepages is having too much clutter.
- Subscription-based publishing: Email and RSS can, in the right circumstances, be effective means of publishing content.
- Promotion: This is not about taking out ads. However, all effective websites need some sort of promotional approach.
- Publishing schedule: One of the hallmarks of a professional website is a publishing schedule.
Publishing team
The structure as proposed in the diagram is a typical publishing structure for a large website. The manual will clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities of each member of the publishing team.
Metrics
We have developed a comprehensive set of tools and approaches that drive out the true value of a website. These tools and approaches cover the following key areas:- Task completion metrics: There is no other metric more important to measuring the value a website delivers. People come to your website to complete key tasks. How quickly and easily they complete these tasks is the foundational measure of a website's success.
- Website cost metrics: This involves calculating the annual cost, covering such things as hosting, application development costs, etc.
- Publishing team metrics: It is important to have a means of rewarding team members who create quality web content that people want, and to identify those who are creating content that nobody is reading. It is also important to calculate how much staff time it is costing to create, edit and publish content.
- Publishing process metrics: This covers such things as:The quality and up-to-datedness of content; The quality of metadata; The percentage of pages greater than 50 KB;
- General website performance metrics: Annual figures need to be captured for the following: Number of visitors; Once-off, as against repeat, visitors; Page impressions/views; The percentage of page impressions that the top 20 percent of pages receive; The percentage of page impressions that the bottom 20 percent of pages receive; Subscriber numbers for email newsletters.
Metadata and classification
Metadata is all about helping people quickly find the right content. People love having quality metadata on the content they are searching for. Unfortunately, they hate publishing metadata for their own content. Metadata has three core purposes: to help people navigate quickly, to make search work really well, and to help people to quickly decide if they have found the right content.Ensuring quality metadata is an ongoing website management problem. The Manual will outline minimum standards that must be adhered to. Best practice in web classification design will be dealt with.
Navigation
There are two ways people can move around a website: by using a search engine and by navigating by means of links. Navigation is thus a crucial pillar of information architecture design.The Manual provides best practice guidance for adhering to the following navigation principles:
- Letting the reader know where they are
- Letting the reader know where they've been
- Letting the reader know where they're going
- Providing context for the reader
- Being consistent for the reader
- Implementing Web convention
- Facilitating feedback
- Facilitating action
Search
Quality search is as much about having the right publishing processes in place (metadata, writing content that uses the words people search for, etc.) as it is about buying the latest search software. Garbage in, garbage out. If you don't have quality, well-structured content, your search won't work well.The Manual will deal with:
- General best practice in search design
- Best practice in basic search design
- Best practice in advanced search design
- Best practice in search results layout
Layout and graphic design
A comprehensive best practice guide to layout and graphic design is delivered. Examples of best practice in layout and design include the following:- Establishing a webpage weight limit.
- Avoiding the use of italics, as it makes text harder to read on a screen.
- Avoiding the use of bold within body text, unless you are dealing with instructional text. For example, "To subscribe to this newsletter ..."
- Never using underline, unless you are dealing with hypertext.
- Making sure that absolutely all graphics contain ALT text. (This is a legal requirement.)
- Saving pictures as JPGs and other graphics as GIFs.
- How to publish long documents.
- How to lay out forms.
- How to lay out email publications.
Web writing and style guide
Web writing is different from print writing. Those who write for the Web maximize value. Those who migrate print content to the Web do not. The Manual will focus on the following web writing skills:- Linking: The essence of the Web is linking, and writing quality links is a core skill of the web writer.
- Search optimization: Creating your content in a way that maximizes its findability will maximize its value. The Manual will explain the three golden rules of search engine optimization.
- Writing web headings and summaries: While not radically different from writing print headings and summaries, there are still some important differences that need to be understood.
- Writing web sentences and paragraphs, lists and bullet points: A clear set of Dos and Don'ts.
- Publishing web images: Best practice in how to publish quality web images that have minimum size and maximum impact.
A-Z of common usage
A list of the most common house style issues for your website content, for example:- Specific abbreviations and acronyms
- Effective use of carewords
- How content is dated
- How "am/pm" is dealt with
- How megabyte is abbreviated, etc.
