Gerry McGovern published a good article yesterday on why Web managers need to be out on the road talking to their readers. Do any of you have the time to do that? Would any of your managers even allow it?
I try to talk with students when I have the chance and to my friends who are considering returning to college or who have children who will soon graduate. I learn something useful from every conversation but have never set up any kind of schedule. And I very rarely talk to alumni or administrators or even other staff who I know have to use our site. Kind of depressing.
I was particularly struck by his comment "in many organizations there isn't anybody who can differentiate between killer content and filler content." We've spoken about filler content. That's easy to obtain. We don't have to write it. And people believe in it. But what exactly is killer content?
Is anything on my site killer content? Probably the most popular page in terms of search results in an essay "The Purpose of Education" which was written by a student and published in our alumni magazine. I assume that the readers are people who have to write a similar essay. So it gets lots of hits but I doubt that it encourages anyone to read further in the site or to improve their opinion of our college or the U.
Killer content would be what? Something that answers a person's question so they don't have to make a phone call or a visit? Something they like enough to forward the URL to a friend? A page that makes a prospective student excited about the prospect of attending the U? A page that informs a legislator's aid about the resources we offer the state? A page that gets an employee to the correct and updated form?
Posted by bullwink at May 2, 2005 9:09 AM