Insights / Visibility & Authority
Your website content is stuck in someone’s head. Here’s how to get it out
An interview-to-content method that turns real expertise into pages buyers can use, with AI in the right place.
You know what your customers need to hear. You explain it every week, on calls, in meetings, on site visits.
Then someone asks you to write the services page, and nothing comes out.
That’s normal. The problem usually isn’t writing skill. It’s that the knowledge lives in one or two people’s heads, those people are busy, and a blank page asks them to do two hard jobs at once: remember everything and write it well.
So the page waits.
Or it gets filled with something generic.
Or the old brochure goes up word for word.
The real question isn’t “who’s going to write this?” It’s “how do we get what our experts know onto the page, accurately, without eating their week?”
Why the usual shortcuts fail
Copying another firm’s pages is the fastest route to content that says nothing about you. Even rewritten, it answers their buyers’ questions with their experience. A buyer comparing you to a competitor learns nothing new.
Pasting the old brochure fails for a different reason. It was written for a different reader, at a different time, often to impress rather than to help someone decide.
Handing it to a junior person can work. It fails when they’re asked to write expertise they don’t have, with no time from the people who do. That isn’t a junior problem. It’s an access problem.
The interview-to-content method
Separate the knowing from the writing. The expert talks. Someone else structures, drafts and edits. The expert checks it.
Start with buyer questions.
List what prospects actually ask before they hire you, especially the questions that come up in sales calls and the ones they’re slightly embarrassed to ask. Your sales team and inbox are the best sources. Here’s how to find and answer them.
- “How long does this usually take?”
- “What does it cost, roughly?”
- “What happens if we get it wrong?”
Interview the expert.
Book 30 to 45 minutes, record it and transcribe it. Ask the buyer questions one at a time and push for specifics: what usually goes wrong, what you’d tell a friend, where you disagree with common advice. Talking is easier than writing, and it captures how you actually explain things.
Gather the evidence.
Make a short inventory of what supports the claims: credentials, approved project examples, process documents, genuine testimonials, photos, data you’re allowed to share. If a claim has no evidence, soften it or cut it. What counts as proof buyers trust.
Outline, then draft.
Turn the transcript into an outline built around the buyer’s questions, not your org chart. Then draft in plain language, keeping the expert’s phrases where they’re sharper than anything a writer would invent.
Send it back for expert review.
The expert checks accuracy, not commas. Is anything wrong, overstated or missing? Would you be comfortable if a client read this? Then someone edits for clarity, spelling and grammar.
Publish with one clear next step.
Every page should tell the reader what to do if it answered their question: call, book, request a quote, read the next page.
Update from what you learn.
Watch which pages get used, which questions sales still hears, and what prospects say they read. When a topic clearly resonates, write the follow-up. When the answer changes, change the page.
What this looks like on one page
Say you run a 12-person accounting firm and need a page on corporate tax for owner-managed businesses. Your senior partner knows it cold and has no time.
Someone pulls six questions from recent sales calls. The partner spends 40 minutes answering them on a recorded call. The writer finds two approved client situations to describe without names, plus the partner’s designation and years in practice. A draft goes back with three questions flagged. The partner fixes one overstated line and adds a common mistake nobody had thought to ask about. The page goes live with a link to book a consultation.
The partner spent about an hour in total. The page sounds like the partner, because it is.
The expert supplies the knowledge. Everyone else supplies the time.
Where AI fits, and where it doesn’t
AI tools are useful in this process. They’re not a substitute for the interview.
| Step | AI can help | Needs the expert |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer questions | Suggest question variations | Confirm what buyers really ask |
| Interview | Transcribe and summarize | Give the answers |
| Draft | Structure the transcript, tighten wording | Keep the judgment and opinions |
| Review | Catch typos and unclear sentences | Verify every fact and claim |
An AI draft with no interview behind it reads like everyone else’s, because it’s built from everyone else’s. The experience, the opinions and the examples are what make a page worth reading, and they’re also what search engines and AI tools look for when deciding whose expertise to trust. More on that in how we build authority.
Who owns what
Content stalls when one person owns all of it. Split the jobs instead. Sales or the front desk collects questions. Subject experts give interviews and review. One editor owns structure, voice and the publishing calendar. One person owns updates. Small teams can combine roles, as long as each job has a name next to it.
Before publishing, run the basic checks. Can someone scan it and find their answer? Is it free of clichés and hard selling? Has someone other than the writer proofread it? Is there one obvious next step?
You don’t need a writer who knows your business.
You need a process that gets your business out of your head.