Why content deserves more credit

Your content says everything about you. It communicates more than just your products or services, but your values, your vision, your personality.

The right language really gets to the heart of what you do, who you are, and what makes you different.

It has the ability to inform, inspire and incite change. It can turn a visit into a sale, a stranger into a customer.

So why then is it often overlooked, underestimated, rushed or not prioritised?

SEO is partly to blame. This is far from an attack on SEO (I geek out over Search Console with the best of them), but it’s made us view content as a means to an end. We create content because it fuels something else – we’re adding content to a page to bump up its positions, or we’re creating articles that live offsite because we want links. Briefs are written outlining a word count, rather than the impact we want the words to have; the message we want to convey.

Yes, content is important – vital in fact – for SEO but it should be allowed to serve its own purpose too.

It’s the same for all marketing channels. Everything you do needs words, whether it’s email marketing or social content, or even PPC ads or videos that have subtitles. While I think most people recognise that (and you can’t scroll through LinkedIn for long before coming across the phrase “content is king”) I also sometimes think that the actions don’t match up – content is often still the secondary concern. We decide what we’re doing, then request the content afterwards.

I think it’s especially common in the digital marketing world and I think there’s a few behaviours that contribute to this mindset.

Treating content as an afterthought

As I’ve touched upon above, I think this unconscious attitude stems from the fact that content isn’t given the planning or the time you might give to other departments. It’s quite common for marketers – client-side and agency alike, to plan out a strategy, brief other elements of the project, but only brief a copywriter at the last minute and expect a quick turnaround. You wouldn’t do it with design – in fact most people would start here.

By keeping content in the conversation from the beginning, I think we can change the narrative. It’s about managing expectations too; I think the time it takes to create powerful content is normally drastically underestimated when it comes to other mediums.

Pricing ourselves down  

Part of this, I believe is due to pricing models with a number of (but certainly not all!) digital agencies. We do ourselves down. If we appear to value our content so much lower than our design for example, then we can only expect people to view content as less important.

Everyone’s an expert

The importance of, and demand for, content for SEO strategies has also meant that everyone’s suddenly become an expert, in a similar way to having smartphones with incredible cameras and Instagram has made everyone a photographer. It’s accessible – you might not have Photoshop installed on your PC, but anyone can create copy.

It’s great to see, but to a certain extent it also dilutes the skill and experience that goes into great copy.

I think it’s a good thing that content is so important in the SEO world – I think it’s certainly improved the reputation of the industry and forced us all to do better work.

But I think it’s also time we start viewing content a little differently; as its own entity. Not just focusing on links or search positions, but thinking about what we want our audience to think or feel. How do we want them to view us, what impression do we want them to leave with, what do we want to inspire them to do?

I think the onus is also on copywriters and content marketers to jeep beating that drum and making people understand – after all you don’t know what you don’t know. I think this is key to helping us claim the time and consideration that good copy deserves and demanding the respect that other mediums and channels have.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if those words aren’t chosen carefully.