What role should content play in your business? I asked 25 experts what role creating content plays in their business. I’ll let them take it from here .

David Meerman Scott Best-selling author, speaker and coach. Find him at DavidMeermanScott.com.

It is the only form of marketing I do.

Mark Schaefer Author, consultant and college educator who blogs at {grow}.

Funny you should ask this question as I was just thinking about how this has changed for me. In the past two years I would say my work has changed so that I probably spend 80 percent of my time creating, reviewing, editing and publishing content!

Pat Flynn Blogs about creating online income streams at Smart Passive Income.

Creating content, which I believe should be done in all mediums possible (blogging, videos and podcasts), is my way of “planting seeds”. Every post, video or podcast episode that is published becomes a seed that could eventually grow into something fruitful for my business. It becomes a source of the audience itself (through referrals, shares, Google, iTunes, YouTube, etc.), and it becomes the source of building trust with my audience, which is important because without that trust, there can be no transactions of any type – from becoming a subscriber all the way to the customer level, and beyond.

Derek Halpern Blogs about leveraging human psychology to get traffic, leads and sales at Social Triggers.

Content is ESSENTIAL to my business. Content is how I attract qualified traffic that eventually turns into both leads and sales. Content is how I keep subscribers happy. Content is, essentially, my entire business.

However, you have to know how to create the right content, and the type of content I focus on is Contagious Content. Not only is it great for attracting traffic, it’s great for building an email list.

Erika Napoletano Online strategy consultant, and Head Redhead at her blog, Redhead Writing.

Content IS my business. Rather, I create stories. The best “content” places your reader in the story, taking them to places familiar and helps them understand how they are part of the message. Killer content even makes them realize that the message is their idea, not yours. I owe 100% of any success I’ve had to the words I write that people read, and that I’ve written those words well enough to make people feel reading them isn’t just time well spent, but time they look forward to spending again.

Francisco Rosales Coach, consultant and blogger at Social Mouths.

I’d say my business is currently relying almost completely on content marketing. And what I like about it is that it also helps me attract the right kind of prospect, people that are aligned with my thoughts on business and a certain way of seeing things.

Even if new business comes from existing relationships, those relationships were most likely created at my blog.

In the near future I see my business moving more and more towards content and even education.

Jonathan Fields Entrepreneur, author and speaker. Find him at JonathanFields.com.

It builds rapport, value, community, credibility, thought-leadership, curiosity, reach and interest.

Marcus Sheridan Speaker, coach and inbound marketing specialist. Find him at TheSalesLion.com.

“Content” is the soul of my business. It’s my brand, it’s my best sales tool, and it’s what allows me to pay my bills. For example, with my swimming pool company, our blog brings in so many visitors(through SEO) that it generates over 2 millions dollars in sales alone each year. Without those sales, we’d be in big, big trouble.

But content isn’t just about ‘bringing folks in’, it also pushes prospects down the funnel and gets them closer to making a buying decision. So throughout the entire sales process, we are always looking for ways to get our content in front of customers and help them progress towards making a buying decision.

Dino Dogan Co-founder of, and marketing genius behind, Triberr.

Content has played the most central role in my business. Content is THE reason I have a business to speak of.

Somewhat jokingly I always say that DIYBlogger.NET is the highest converting blog in the blogosphere. The content is what enabled my to establish a thriving community on my blog, which was then leveraged to bring-over the first batch of amazing bloggers to Triberr.

Who are some of the first Triberr members?

• Extraordinaire Expatriataire, Mr. John Falchetto. Triberr user ID 12
• The Buff Buffer guy, Mr Leo Widrich. Triberr user ID 13
• PR Hostess with the Mostess, Mrs. Gini Dietrich. Triberr user ID 16
• Downtown Danny Brown, Triberr user ID 17
• Beez Neez who always aims to please, Ingrid Abboud. Triberr user ID 23
• Mr. Wow, Srinivas Rao. Triberr user ID 33
• Mr. Twitter himself, Aaron Lee. Triberr user ID 37
• Content Conundrum Solver, Mr. Eugene Farber, Triberr ID 178

The only reason Triberr has turned into a powerhouse blogging community that it is, is because the content on DIYBlogger.NET managed to establish connections and trust with early adopters who then invited others, who then invited others, who then….you get the picture.

The piece of content that describes and shares the early history and transition between DIYBlogger.NET and Triberr can be found here.

Gini Dietrich Founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, and lead author at Spin Sucks.

A pretty big one! We write two blog posts every day and I contribute to several publications weekly. While the content for other publications doesn’t drive a lot of business, it helps with our brand awareness and credibility. From Spin Sucks, the blog, we already have one new client in 2012 that came through that content. It’s a pretty good ROI.

Corbett Barr Founder of ThinkTraffic and creator of How to Start a Blog that Matters.

Creating content is critical to our business. It’s how we attract visitors, demonstrate our usefulness and build trust with them. Content is what we use to form relationships.

James Clear Blogs about earning more money at Passive Panda.

Content is my business. No content, no business. The better the content, the better the business. Simple as that.

David Risley Professional blogger, entrepreneur and online marketer. Find him at DavidRisley.com.

Content is the entire bedrock of my business. It is how I attract people, and it is what I sell.

Brankica Underwood Online business coach and blogger at BlogLikeAStar.com.

It is pretty much the main thing in my online businesses. Even when I can reuse
content from a seller whose product I am promoting as an affiliate, I still do my
own testing of the product and write my own content about it.

Lewis Howes Speaker, author and entrepreneur. Find him at LewisHowes.com.

Content is the most powerful way to fuel your lead generation and grow your brand.

Make sure your content is unique and new and you’ll always gain the attention of your niche.

John Falchetto Lifestyle and business coach. Find him at JohnFalchetto.com.

Content is my storefront, without it I have no business presence online.

Danny Iny Author, strategist, serial-entrepreneur and co-founder of Firepole Marketing.

Content plays a huge role for us at Firepole Marketing; it has pretty much replaced the traditional promotion activities that most businesses think of as “marketing.” Instead of running ads, we create content, and when we run campaigns, they’re usually built around content as well (like our “‘Marketing That Works’ Ideas Contest“, for example).

Ian Brodie Small business marketing and sales coach. Find him at IanBrodie.com. 

For my business, content is the way I attract clients and differentiate myself. As an advisor to other consultants and coaches, my clients look to me for new ideas and practical solutions to the marketing and sales challenges they have.

My clients are already very knowledgeable in their fields, capable and motivated. What they’re looking for is marketing expertise that goes beyond the basics and is specifically tailored for professionals like them. Rather than just claiming I have this expertise, the content I produce allows me to demonstrate it. It means that when potential clients contact me, I have very little to prove to them – they already know they want to work with me.

And conversely, if my stuff isn’t right for people – they can see from my content that it isn’t and we don’t waste each other’s time dancing around trying to figure each other out.

Christian Hollingsworth Digital marketing and social media consultant, and blogger at SmartBoyDesigns.com.

Creating content is central to my business, and I believe, should be central to every business. Whether a shoe distributor or comic troupe, content is valuable. And why? It’s what draws attention to a business and its products. I go to Disneyland because of its beautiful “content.” In their case, the rides and shows. I read certain blogs because of their useful content. Whether hobby blogger, vlogger, local restaurant or otherwise; it’s important to produce content in some way.

Ana Hoffman Blogs about free traffic generation methods at TrafficGenerationCafe.com.

Who cares about creating great content?

Let’s just focus on bringing in hordes of traffic, via search engines or whatever else we can get our hands on, and see if any of it sticks, i.e. is sucked into clicking on our paid ads or affiliate links, right?

Rhetorical question.

Good content goes to the heart of what blogging is all about and GREAT content is what truly sets apart a visionary blogger from a blogging mediocrity.

Paul Wolfe Teaches people how to play bass and blogger at One Spoon at a Time.

Video is a big part of my teaching bass guitar business.  It does the following jobs:

1. It attracts traffic to my website via YouTube and other websites

2. Establishes my brand.  Every video is introduced with “Hi, I’m Paul from How To Play Bass Dot Com.’  And every video has several images with that website brand written on it – reinforcing the brand further

3. Does a lot of the job of establishing the “know, like and trust” factor.

4. Disqualifies those who aren’t in my target audience – because for them my videos are too basic.  (I speak to the beginners…and there are far more of those than there are intermediate bass players)

Dov Gordon Small business marketing and sales coach. Find him at DovGordon.net. 

I create teleseminars, such as “The 5 Steps to A Consistent Flow of Customers.” This attracts entrepreneurs who want a consistent, predictable flow of clients – without the overwhelm that comes from trying to do all the million things everyone is telling them they need to do.  Then I share articles via email to build a trusting relationship.

Steve Scott Affiliate marketing expert and blogger at SteveScottSite.

When I first started online, I never understood the value of content.  I thought you could build crappy sites and still make money.  Boy was I wrong!

What I didn’t realize was Internet businesses are built on value exchanges.  When you give away great content upfront you form relationships with people.  From there, you can hook them into your ‘sphere of influence’ by continuing to provide excellent content.  Ultimately you can make money from this influence by recommending products that help solve people’s problems.

I feel creating content is my most important task.  In fact, it’s the first thing I do every single morning.  It’s what propels my Internet business forward.  So I treat it as a priority for every day.

Murray Lunn Entrepreneur, freelance writer and founder of PLR Articles Now. 

Content has been a huge part of my online business and ventures. Let’s face it, I’m not made out of money so I can’t go off dumping thousands of dollars on advertising which makes my free time the perfect opportunity to bootstrap my business.

I like to use my afternoons to work on new content pieces rather than vegging out in front of the TV. Many of them never get published but it keeps me on my edge. I’m in a constant state of trying to learn something new and bring that knowledge to my followers and customers.

Overall, I would say content has been the biggest breakthrough for getting my ventures up and running. There are plans to expand in the near future through paid advertising…but content is forever and I’m going to make that work to the best of its ability.

Tom Ross Entrepreneur, designer and blogger at FanExtra.

I’m really passionate about creating quality content. However, lots of bloggers seem to misunderstand what ‘quality content’ is. I see so many blogs repeating the same generic, over-used tips that don’t really help anyone. At the FanExtra network we always strive to provide content that is not only helpful and practical, but unique. We focus a lot on our unique post series (such as our popular 30 minute redesigns). We also base a lot of our articles on real-life experiences, rather than vague non-applicable theories. In this sense content seems to be crucial to our success, as people really identify with content that goes above and beyond what’s normal.