Website content: the need to specialize: September 17, 2001 issue of New Thinking

September 17, 2001 New Thinking:
Website content: the need to specialize

Website content management

Home I About I Services I Clients I Contact

New Thinking Home

Subject Classification
Reader Feedback
Subscribing
Unsubscribing
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996

Books by
Gerry McGovern

Content Critical

Gaining competitive advantage through high-quality web content

The Web Content
Style Guide

The essential guide
for online writers, editors and managers

Note to readers:
In a week which saw terrible tragedy in America, I would like to extend my sympathies to all those affected.

Gerry McGovern

September 17, 2001

Website content: the need to specialize

By Gerry McGovern

One of the most serious mistakes that people new to content make is underestimating the expense and sheer difficulty of launching a successful publication. Yes, the Internet has made everyone a publisher, and every website is indeed a publication. What is lacking, however, is an understanding of publishing. Hard lessons are only recently being learned.

There’s more to content than meets the eye. There’s more to keeping a website up-to-date with fresh and compelling content than hooking up a few databases and developing some fancy visuals. Quality content is expensive to create, edit and publish. Loyal readers are difficult to acquire.

The Internet is a graveyard of websites who tried to do too much. There are plenty of high profile casualties from the publishing industry itself. Salon may have quality journalism but it’s not making money. The Industry Standard was a great magazine but is no more. eCompany Now acquired Business2.

On September 5, The Financial Times announced that it had sold FT Energy, an energy portal. FT has sold off a number of specialist publications. According to Stephen Hill, CEO for Pearson's FT Group, “Our newspapers, magazines and online services are now all focused on what we do best -- providing our customers with the very best business and financial news, comment, analysis and data." FT is specializing.

If FT, a publisher with a tremendous reputation, is specializing, what does that say for the average website? If Yahoo, the original and best portal, is having to reshape its portal strategy for profitability, what does that say? It says that the publishing game is a notoriously difficult one to crack. It’s one thing creating content. It’s quite another to make a profit out of it.

And yet content is king. A website without content is like a car without petrol. If you’re on the Web from a business point of view, you have to commit to publishing quality content on a timely and consistent basis. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be on the Web. The key question then becomes: What type of content should I publish? That depends on a number of factors, including:

Who your reader (customer, member of staff) is
What content they really need from you
How much it costs to publish this content

Portals are examples of where ambition can get the better of economics. People need a lot of content, but that doesn’t mean that you should provide all of it. Portals can get carried away with an ‘everything you ever wanted to know about everything’ philosophy. Asides from the fact that this is an expensive way to think, it can also crowd out really important content.

If a website is too cluttered with a broad range of information, then the really important stuff can get lost. HR information on an intranet is rarely breaking news but when you need it you really need it. Potential customers may be interested in general articles on your industry, but if it’s product features they’re after, they need to be able to get to them quickly.

Many of us got carried away with the 'everyone can be a publisher of everything' belief. Now, websites need to focus on content that matters – to the customer and the bottom line.

Gerry McGovern

Next issue: Fast downloading, information rich websites
Previous issue: The information society is alive and well
New Thinking homepage

New Thinking Newsletter
Subscribe to this free weekly newsletter covering the role and function of content on the Web.
More info | Privacy policy
Read the current issue

Email Address:

 Subscribe  Unsubscribe

Content management seminar feedback
"Gerry's presentation was very well received by the more than 400 higher education delegates. I've chaired this meeting since 1994 and very few speakers have generated the same level of enthusiasm. Wit and wisdom is always an unbeatable combination."
Bob Johnson, American Marketing Association

“Excellent presenter ... thought-provoking and relevant. I hope we can persuade him to visit us again one day.”
Malcolm Davison
The British Association of Communicators in Business

"Hearing Gerry McGovern speaking, one can feel that he truly masters the subject of content management. He was voted ‘best speaker of the conference’ by delegates."
Toon Lowette
European Association of Directory Publishers

Find out more about Gerry McGovern's seminars

Many of us got carried away with the 'everyone can be a publisher of everything' belief.

“New Thinking is an every-week-must for my job. New Thinking discusses important topics from unexpected points of view in a precise and informative way. I really enjoy that. Also I encourage all my students to use his newsletter.”
Prof. Dr. A. Christ, Fachhochschule Offenburg - University of Applied Sciences, Germany

More reader feedback