Content: (noun) substantive information or creative material.

Sounds flash, eh?

Just whip up a bit of content for your website. Bit of impressive banter, a few buzzwords, bit of the old vocabulary.

Yep, shouldn’t be too hard to get something substantive and creative. That ought to rope in a few new clients. It’s just words. How hard can it be?

Hmmm.

Thing is, when’s the last time you read something you’d write yourself and found it … ahem, engaging?

Or convincing enough to persuade you to learn more?

Content is curious stuff. It can be engaging, whimsical, serious, pushy, persuasive, authoritative, sympathetic.

In business, it’s everything.

Content is tied closely to credibility, survival, turnover and, ultimately, success.

Content is king. On your website. In your reports. In your media statements, your blogs — everything you put out to your existing and prospective clients.

But it must be the right content. Not something just thrown together because it sounds clever, has a few big words and looks kind of pretty.

Content has to engage your client.

It has to communicate what they want to hear from you.

It has to relay what you want to say without sounding pushy, overbearing or a try-hard.

In short, it has to be believable. It has to be genuine.

Which, in the end, means it has to be compiled by a professional.

Don’t leave something so important to chance … or you won’t be very ‘content’ in the other sense of the word.

PS: What do you think of this blog post? Email me @ info@noelmurphy.com.au.