Product Description
Definitive guide to best practice in web content writing, editing, and design. Gives non-technical guidance on what works and what doesn’t on the web, with plenty of examples. Softcover.
The Web Content Style Guide: The Essential Reference for Online Writers, Editors and Managers





My initially reaction was “wow, this is really useful.” But a closer read left me disappointed. The initial 32 pages are a half-decent set of Miss Manners for web publishing, but nowhere near as comprehensive (or, IMHO, useful) as e.g. Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”. The remaining 200 or so pages are an attempt at a glossary/style guide alphabet-style. Some of the definitions are useful enough – it is nice to finally have the web site/website discussion solved in print.
But it is unclear what ground the authors wanted to cover, and the selections are an odd bunch, many of the definitions are incomplete. Why is there a specific entry for “Australian dollar”? The definition of “authentication” talks only about credit card authorization – there’s nothing about user authentication. And why does ASP get its own definition, while PHP, ColdFusion, Perl and any number of other technologies are omitted?
I was very impressed with McGovern and Norton’s “Content Critical”, but their style guide is a bit of a dud.
Rating: 2 / 5
I’m a huge fan of McGovern, but this book isn’t worth the money. You can actually read the first section of the book – the part I really loved – at his web site for free: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com. The “sample web style guide” at the end of the book is woefully underwritten. Buy CONTENT CRITICAL instead.
Rating: 2 / 5
This book is next to useless as a web style guide. Of the 224 pages only the first 35 pages are devoted to the topic of style. The rest of the book is a glossary of terms with little practical use. Most of the material presented in this book is available on the web for free and in greater detail.
My first glance through the book was a disappointment. Two days later I gave it a second chance but it confirmed my first impression so I sent it back.
Rating: 1 / 5
This author is highly recommended, but the printing quality is worse than from an extremely poor fax machine. I really don’t care about the quality of the content as trying to read it would be unbearable. It is going back immediately.
Rating: 1 / 5
This book was useless to me, and also maddening because it purported to address issues with quality of content. I should have read the other reviews here and then steered clear of this book. The content is anemic: nothing of substance here. And the publication looks like someone took it to a copy shop and made a copy of a copy.
This book simply does not offer useful information or — by virtue of content and presentation — ‘walk the talk’ of the importance of quality content.
Rating: 1 / 5