10 lessons from 10 years of leading content

1. Taste is a moat

Taste is the instinct that knows when something is good, when something is almost good but not quite, and when something is a waste of everyone's time before a single word gets written. It is rare, it is slow to develop, and after a decade I am more convinced than ever that it is the single most durable competitive advantage in content. Build a team with it, or build your own, and almost everything else becomes easier to solve.

2. SEO has always been about good content

Every few years someone announces that SEO has changed completely, and the tactics shift while the fundamentals stay exactly where they have always been. Google has been trying to reward genuinely useful, well-written content for its entire existence. The teams that figured that out early - and kept writing things people wanted to read - outperformed the teams chasing algorithm updates every quarter. Add value, answer the question properly, write for a person. That has never not worked.

3. Create things people want to share

Shares are a proxy for something real: the reader thought someone else in their world needed to see this. That is a high bar, and it should be. Using it as a filter at the brief stage - the kind of brief that produces content someone would forward to a colleague - means you arrive at the feed with something that earns attention rather than just fills a slot. If you cannot answer that, the brief probably needs another pass.

4. Quality over quantity, every single time

I have never worked on a content programme where doubling the output doubled the results. I have worked on several where cutting output in half and spending the saved time on quality produced measurably better returns. Volume is easier to defend in a planning document than quality is, which is why it becomes the default.

5. Content and brand growth

Paid media can generate awareness fast. Content builds the thing that paid media is amplifying. Over a ten-year arc, the brands that invested consistently in editorial, in thought leadership, in genuinely useful educational content, ended up with something that paid ads cannot buy: a reputation for knowing what they are talking about. That reputation compounds like nothing else in business. It is also the thing that survives a budget cut, because it already exists.

6. Content is a growth multiplier for paid media

A report someone wants to read, a piece of research they will share with a colleague - these are assets that paid media can put in front of the right people at the right moment, and the exchange feels fair. A piece of content that delivers real value will convert from a paid click at a rate that a product landing page rarely matches. The content strategy and the paid media strategy should be the same strategy, because a unified approach is what makes both of them work.

7. You do not need a big team

Some of the best content operations I have seen have been run by two or three people with clear roles, good taste, and a tight process. A small team with a strong knowledge base and agentic workflows handling the repetitive work will consistently do more with less. Systems produce quality at scale.

8. Content workflows are one of the best applications of AI

AI earns its place in workflows. The research, the brief, the repurposing, the distribution, the updating of content that is six months old and slipping in rankings - these are the tasks that eat hours and produce no creative value. When AI is dropped into a well-built workflow, it removes the gruntwork and gives the humans back their time for the decisions that require actual judgment. The teams that build agentic content operations around this reality are pulling ahead.

9. Writers are not going anywhere

Skilled writers remain essential. An LLM can produce a structurally coherent article on almost any topic in thirty seconds. It cannot produce the observation from the field or the sentence that makes a reader stop and think - the kind of detail that only comes from someone who has genuinely done the work. Great writing still requires a human who has something worth saying and knows how to say it. What is changing is the ratio of writing time to everything else - research, formatting, distribution, optimisation - and AI handles that ratio shift better than almost anything else we have had access to.

10. There is no one-size-fits-all

This one took longer to learn than it should have. Every brand has a different audience and a genuinely different version of what good looks like when it comes to what they want to read and the media they prefer to consume - the relationship with the reader, the editorial register, the topics that actually land. The best content strategies I have been part of were built around a specific brand's specific reality, and the frameworks and playbooks only got you so far. The tenth lesson is also the ongoing one: your audience is usually already telling you the answer.

Frequently asked questions

What does it mean to lead content rather than just make it?

Leading content means being responsible for the strategy, the team, the process, and the output - not just the writing itself. A content leader sets editorial direction, builds workflows, and makes decisions about where to invest creative time and budget. The skills overlap with making content, but the job is fundamentally different once you are accountable for other people's work and the overall performance of the function.

How important is taste in content marketing?

Taste is the ability to recognise good content before you can fully explain why it is good, and to spot weak content early enough to fix it. It is difficult to teach and harder to hire for than technical skills, but it is the single trait that most consistently separates strong content teams from average ones. Over time, it is a genuine competitive advantage because it cannot be copied the way a strategy or a tactic can.

Does AI replace content writers?

No, and it is not close. AI handles the structural, repetitive, and research-heavy parts of content production well. Writers bring perspective, experience, editorial judgment, and voice - the things that make content worth reading in the first place. Writers who understand how to work with AI in a well-built workflow are significantly more productive.

Is content still a strong driver of brand growth in 2026?

Yes, and the argument for it is stronger than it has ever been. In a market where paid media costs are rising and attention is harder to hold, owned content that builds genuine authority and audience trust is one of the few assets that compounds over time. Strong editorial builds a reputation that holds weight long before a paid campaign enters the picture - and that reputation is the thing that makes every subsequent effort work harder.

How do you build a high-performing content operation with a small team?

The answer is almost always systems before headcount. A small team with a clear editorial process and agentic workflows handling the repetitive work, backed by a well-maintained knowledge base, will outperform a larger team without those things. Strategy and voice sit with the humans, the system carries everything else. Get that ratio right and team size matters far less than you'd think.