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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
June 02, 2003
Metadata is essential web writing skill: Part 1
By Gerry McGovern
Metadata is one of the most misunderstood aspects of content management and website design. Editors and writers tend to look at it as a technical issue. Technical people look for a software solution. Both are wrong. Metadata is a fundamental skill that web writers and editors must acquire.
Metadata is the: who, what, where, when and how, of your content. It is that 30 second elevator description. Metadata may include: heading/title, summary/description, author name, date of publication, geographic classification, subject classification, keywords.
Metadata gives your content context. Content that does not have effective metadata is not web content. It is sloppy, next-to-useless print content that has been unprofessionally published on the Web. If you don't have time to publish professional metadata for your content, you shouldn't be allowed to publish anything on a website.
Many writers and editors are technophobes. The story goes that Woody Allen invites a friend around for dinner every time his typewriter ribbon needs replacing. I know many highly intelligent writers who go blank and freeze up whenever faced with any sort of technical problem. Writers have a real love-hate relationship with computers; they love them when they work, they hate them when they don't.
When writers and editors hear the word 'metadata,' they run for cover. Metadata sounds really technical. It definitely sounds like it belongs in the bag of tricks with servers and dynamic HTML. Every time I use the word 'metadata,' I see writers eyes glaze. Wake up! This is meant for you. Don't nod off! This is really important stuff.
Metadata may well be the difference between web content that succeeds or fails. You quite simply cannot call yourself a web writer unless you can write quality metadata. Anyway, much of what is called metadata, you do already (headings, summaries, etc.). You just don't call it metadata.
Metadata is what scan readers want. Within a matter of seconds, people scan a page to see if it's right for them. Scan readers love metadata. It quickly gives them context for the page they are on. It helps them make the decision whether to read on or hit the Back button. If you don't have good metadata, lots more people will be hitting the Back button.
Whenever I hear technical people talk about a software solution to metadata, I want to scream. (Well, maybe not scream, but I do get annoyed.) Technical people can be absolutely brilliant when it comes to technical things. But like writers not having a clue about computers, techies very often don't have a clue about content. The problem is that many techies think they understand content. That's when it gets dangerous.
Some techies look at content and see a big pile of words. The objective is to put metadata on this pile of words as quickly and cheaply as possible using clever software. If you want a quality result, this is definitely not how to do it. If you want a cheap and nasty result that is often worse-than-useless, sure, take this approach.
The word processor is a useful tool. But I know of few writers who would trust a word processor to check spelling and grammar. Good writers take responsibility for their spelling and grammar. Good web writers take responsibility for their metadata.
Gerry McGovern
Next issue:
Metadata is essential web writing skill: Part 2
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