Answer: No, you can’t.

The web media today has evolved into one of the world’s most versatile mediums. It’s a single most potent medium that showcases you – your organisation, your ethics, your values – to the world. While your viral marketing tools, ad campaigns and other marketing collaterals will attract traffic, those interested will all want to refer to your website eventually. And god forbid that they should find it lacking.

So, doing a patch job for your website is a complete no no. Especially your web content. Because that is exactly what makes your website truly exciting to the visitor.

When someone visits a website, they are looking for comprehensive information. Not the sugar-coated words of an advertisement or the out-to-sell language of a brochure. They want to know you better and what is it that you actually have to offer them.

Hence, you wouldn’t want a prospective client reading shabby, irrelevant or unconvincing content when they visit your website.

Making do with your brochure content is a massive disaster. The content of a brochure intends on direct selling. While it does list out the myriad products you offer and their various aspects and also a few noteworthy things about your organisation, it does not provide comprehensive information. Information that your prospective customer needs to develop a feeling of trust about you, which will eventually lead him to enter a business relationship with you. Information that you didn’t have the space to accommodate in your brochure. Information that showcases you and your abilities.

What’s more, a website has an identity of its own. It is a different entity from any other of your marketing collaterals. Using the same content for your website that you will use for any of the others will only result in an identity crisis for your website. The web uses a different style of language and a different category of persuasion, called ‘substantiation’. It is this substantiation in your website that gives your other collaterals its credibility.

The two chief ways in which to ensure good content in your website and keep it content rich. First, by updating your site regularly. And second, by creating relevant content and creating it with the right ingredients. So, go ahead. Put in that ounce of extra effort when doing the content for your website; you will benefit generously from it.