Does your company's Web site have well-written content aimed at the right audience? As many people know and say, Content is King. And nowhere is that maxim more appropriate than on the Web. Is your site's content helping you sell more products or services? It should. Let's take a brief look at valuable Web site content.

People who are not writers will most likely disagree with this next statement or at least find it hard to believe: Writing is hard work. Creating appropriate, quality content for an audience is tough to do. I spent many years working in the automotive repair business. Believe me, automotive repair is mentally challenging and physically difficult. But after I started writing, I learned that putting words on paper or a computer screen is just as difficult, if not more so, than auto repair. Changing a crankshaft, a heater core, or a ring-and-pinion, to me, is easier than having readers understand your thinking the way you want them to.

The process of turning thoughts into words and moving those words from your brain to your finger tips and onto paper-and then having your readers understand your words the way in which you were thinking them-is not only hard, but it's tiring, trying, and time-consuming to the point of making the writer frustrated, annoyed, and irritated. But it's also gratifying work, and I love doing it.

What's my point, you ask? My point is that content must have value to attract the attention of prospective buyers, and writing that kind of content isn't easy. If writers do anything, it is this: They cut away the excess and get to the essence of the subject for it to be the most beneficial for the reader-it's always about the reader and never about the writer.

But what exactly is valuable, helpful content? It's content that informs, educates, or entertains and is practical and germane to its intended audience. In The New Rules of Marketing and PR, (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), David Meerman Scott says, "(T)he best Web sites focus primarily on content to pull together their various buyers, markets, media, and products in one comprehensive place." (Italics are mine.)

As you can see, good content has a specific and complicated job to do. Again, this is not easy to write, but it must be written, and written correctly, for your site to attract potential buyers.