The Two Things About Content

Last week, at our weekly client services meeting, Chris Butler introduced us to the “Two Things” exercise. We were then challenged to think about the two things for different aspects of website development. One big item that that we tried to narrow down to two things was “content.”

Not “content entry process,” or “content strategy,” or “content development,” but the whole she-bang, content.

How can content be just two things? Content is everything!

After much consideration and discussion, we decided that the two things about content were:

1. It takes more time than you think
2. It is a continual process

So why did we pick these two things?

A large part of our business is based on content strategy. We utilize a content strategy to develop our business, and we promote content strategy to our clients as a way to develop their own business. For a website to achieve it’s roles to attract, inform and engage its audience, it is required to have some sort of content to back that up.

Because of this importance, it will take more time than you think. You can’t just enter all of your content and be done. There are always ways to tweak your content to better inform or engage your audience and to better attract users through search engines. Creating and entering the content for your website should not be taken lightly. When you site revolves around the content, the content has to be carefully thought out.

Which leads me to the second thing about content—it is a continual process. You are never done creating and adding content. If you think you are, then be prepared to see a decline in traffic and business. We have been producing content on a regular basis through our blog and newsletter for a long time. We have hundreds of newsletters and blog posts…but we’re nowhere near finished. We know that we have to continue to add more content, new content, better content, if we want to continue to be a leader in the field of web development. Our content is how we show our expertise and our personality to potential clients.

In fact, content and this continual process is why we are doing the “two things” exercise. This exercise forces you to think about what is important—to identify the two core things about any given topic. By doing this, we not only were able to think critically about the things that we are doing on a daily basis, but we also set the stage for a series of blog posts…more content.