Who should write your website's content?

If you own a website, you’ve more than likely heard the phrase “content is king” more times than you can count in the last couple of years. It’s never been more true than it is right now.

Old-school SEO tactics (even white-hat ones) that used to give sites a leg up in Google search results are no longer cutting it after the Google Penguin update, designed to reduce the number of spammy search results. Google is much more interested in providing a searcher with a high-quality result now, meaning content that’s relevant to their search terms.

Google puts value on content quality now to help in determining your site’s relevance and popularity. If your site provides high quality content, your users will stay on your site for longer periods, visit more pages, and return to your site more than once. You will have to put in the effort to get that high-quality content onto your site, but in some ways it’s a blessing: you’re more in control of your own search engine results now that content has such increased importance.

It’s really all about you.

I’m of the firm opinion that it’s you, the owner or editor of your company’s site, who should take at least the first stab at writing the content for your own website. Here are a few reasons why.

• Few people can know your business better than you do. There’s no way that I or anyone else who doesn’t work with or for your company has the knowledge to write meaningfully about the nuts and bolts of what you do and how you do it.
• Your voice matters. If you’re adding fresh content to your site on a regular basis through a blog or newsletter, readers will come to recognize your tone and writing style. To them, you become a trusted voice of your company.
• It’s more authentic. Your personality (and that of your business) should come through to some degree in anything you write.
• It’s unique. If the “About Us” page’s content is interchangeable with that of 20 other websites in your industry, that’s not good. As an owner or inside in your company, you’ll know the little details that an outside writer will not.
• Tweets and Facebook wall posts count, too. If your company is involved in social media, the people writing those posts and tweets should have a voice and writing style similar to what’s on your website.
• You’ll get better the more you do it. Truly, it becomes easier as you write more often.

You may not be a “good writer” but that’s okay, you can always get someone else, even an outside service, to copyedit and clean up your work. But I really feel it’s important that you take ownership of your own content as much as possible. Your readers – and Google – will know the difference, especially if you’re producing regular new content as you should be.