I’ve been thinking about websites as business assets for a long time, and I keep coming back to this: the core of any website is the content. After all, “Content sells the product; design sells the content.”

So, if a website is to be valuable to a business, then the content on that site is where most of that value comes from. That makes sense; if you’ve got a killer headline that’s been tested and refined into a conversion machine, then that headline is an asset. If you’ve written an article that consistently brings in leads thanks to strong SEO performance, that’s valuable too.

Yet we treat content as disposable. Thought leadership is handed off to crowdsourced freelancers, and single-line prompts to ChatGPT are replacing entire web pages. Copywriting is often the first thing to get cut from the budget, even though it’s arguably the most hardworking part of the site.

And most websites still begin with design, not the words the design is meant to showcase.

Content is undervalued for the same reason great content is expensive – it’s formless. Without a framework to shape it, it’s hard to know what you’re even paying for. It’s just “words.” The thing is – Words make you money.

So, I’ve been thinking: what if we pulled together a few ideas into a single framework that helps business communicators actually cultivate their message? Messages mature. They become more specific, less generic especially as the business behind them matures too.

Here are three ideas I keep coming back to:

1. Content is persuasive. Especially in business. The job of content on a website is to get people to do something. (I’m a fan of the Minto Pyramid for this reason.)
2. Content on the web should be semantic. Not just for SEO, but because—if it has a job to do—it should be structured, efficient, and explicit. Purpose gives structure.
3. Content should evolve. Stop starting from scratch. A website is digital, so it should be iterative. Progress over perfection.

Treat content like code

Ultimately, we should treat our content like code. That means giving it the same discipline and structure we give to product development or design systems. Content should live in a repository, not buried in Google Docs or scattered across CMS drafts. It should be version-controlled, reviewed, and refined over time. We should be able to track what changes, test what performs, and roll back when needed. When you approach content this way, it stops being disposable and starts becoming a durable business asset.

And when content is structured, it unlocks far more than just website reuse. If it’s semantically tagged and stored in a predictable format, it can be accessed via an API. That means we’re no longer confined to a single channel—we can deliver the same message, or variants of it, to brochures, email campaigns, ads, landing pages, even digital signage. It’s not just “write once, use twice.” It’s “write once, deploy everywhere.”

Designers can pull headlines and CTAs directly into ad templates. Sales teams can generate custom PDFs from the same core messaging used on the website. Developers can build frontends that style content dynamically without hardcoding anything. Marketing teams can spin up campaign assets using structured content blocks instead of starting from scratch. That’s not just efficient—it’s scalable.

This is also how we move beyond the endless redesign cycle. If the content is robust and well-structured, then the website layout becomes just one expression of it. We can evolve our design system without redoing all the copy. We can test new page layouts, audience segments, or brand treatments without gutting the site every time. Content and design become modular, composable, and collaborative.

Where to from here?

Of course, this is still a work in progress. I’m not pretending to have all the answers (and yes, ChatGPT will absolutely be helping me explore this further). But I think there’s something powerful in this approach—something that can transform how we think about digital communication.

If this resonates with you—if you’ve ever felt like content gets stuck in the wrong format, or trapped in the wrong system—I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let’s build a better model. One where content is treated like the business-critical asset it truly is.