When it comes to websites, content is king. In fact, content is everything. It is the honest-to-God heart and soul of a website, period.

In case there was any question of what is considered “content”, it is the words, pictures and even videos, it is, essentially “the guts of a website”, meaning everything that website contains, and it is all that really matters.

In my line of work, getting all the content together for a website is often the greatest hurdle to completing a website. Depending on the budget and the client, it is sometimes something that is just “thrown together”, which makes my job that much harder. However, once they understand how important the content is – which is waaaay more important than the design itself – they will usually  invest the time or money to get it together properly.

Here’s a simple analogy: let’s say you went to a museum to spend the afternoon and when you arrived at the museum you discovered that the objects on display were boring, not engaging at all, and in some cases were of poor visual quality. Could you imagine? If that were the case, then you would probably take a quick look around to be sure that’s all there was, then you’d find the nearest exit. That’s exactly what visitors do when they “click” on a website that has lousy content. They arrive, take a quick look around and if there’s nothing interesting, they exit. In fact, better than 70% of all visitors commonly exit in less than 30 seconds. Sometimes that’s okay because the visitor is was not really your target market anyway, but it’s not okay when the visitor is your public and should have stayed a while and eventually bought whatever you’re selling.

The bottom line is that content is that little slice of magic that keeps the visitor engaged and interested in your website. Take a look at Facebook or YouTube. Both are prime examples of websites that keep the visitor engaged.

In truth, any website which has something of value to promote can be engaging to the visitor as long as the products or services being offered are of interest to the visitor. In other words, if someone is looking for something specific on-line and your website has it, then your website can and should be engaging to that visitor.

The key is to actually create content that fulfills what the visitor is looking for, and which entices them to “read on”, “click here” or “watch this”. This may involve some creativity on your part, or if lacking in creativity, you may have to hire a professional. I don’t mean a professional web designer either, because it is their job to design a website, but it is not generally their job to create the content for the website. In fact, the content may even come from more than one source. For example, you may enlist the services of a professional copywriter to write the copy for your website (do not underestimate the importance of this), or a video/media specialist to create a video or combine and edit existing video footage. There are companies that do create the website, all assets and the content as well. They are called Creative Firms, Ad Agencies, and the like. If they know what they are doing, their services can be invaluable, but they will generally charge accordingly.

At the end of the day all that really matters is whether your website is achieving its purpose, which is to entice those unsuspecting visitors to want what you have, whatever that may be. So when it comes to your website, don’t skimp on content, it really is all that matters.