Why Generic Content Is Killing Trust (and How to Spot It in Your Own Site)
Most content doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because it’s forgettable.
It’s the homepage you skim without really seeing. The blog post that says everything and nothing. The email that reads like it was written by a committee with access to thesaurus.com.
That’s generic content. And while it might look safe on the surface (no big risks, no bold claims) it’s quietly doing long-term damage. Because what reads as “professional” or “neutral” to you might read as vague, impersonal, or untrustworthy to your audience.
Here’s the bit most brands miss: trust isn’t just built through accuracy. It’s built through clarity, confidence, and tone.
If your content feels like it could’ve come from any competitor, or worse, from a robot trained on their blogs, it’s not building trust. It’s dissolving it.
This piece unpacks why generic content is a silent credibility killer—and how to audit your own site for the warning signs.
Short on time? Here are the key takeaways
Generic content erodes trust: Even polished, well-structured copy can harm your credibility if it lacks personality, clarity, or proof.
Forgettable = untrustworthy: When your content sounds like anyone, it signals a lack of authority and intention.
Most blandness is accidental: It’s often caused by unclear tone guidance, rushed processes, or over-reliance on AI and content mills.
Fixing it starts with awareness: A quick audit using human-centred questions can reveal where your content is leaking trust (and how to fix it).
Why Bland Content Quietly Kills Credibility
Let’s get one thing straight: generic doesn’t mean bad grammar or inaccurate facts. It means bland. Vague. Devoid of any human fingerprint.
It’s the content equivalent of beige wallpaper.
Safe, inoffensive… and invisible.
From a user’s point of view, generic content triggers tiny red flags:
You’re not saying anything new.
You’re not showing any real-world experience.
You sound like you copied a brochure or prompted a chatbot and hit publish.
These might seem small. But together, they create a subtle sense of doubt. A reader might not say, “This brand feels untrustworthy,” but their brain is clocking the signals.
No personality.
No proof.
No clarity.
That erodes trust faster than a 404 error.
Search engines pick up on it, too. Generic content often lacks the signals Google now looks for: authorship, first-hand experience, specificity, and clarity. It's why “helpful content” updates have quietly gutted traffic for sites relying on cookie-cutter SEO tactics.
Bottom line: if your content doesn’t sound like it came from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, or sounds like it could’ve come from anyone, you’ve got a trust problem.
Why it Happens (and Why it’s Getting Worse)
From my experience, most brands don’t intend to publish forgettable content. It just… happens.
Sometimes it’s a bandwidth issue. You’re juggling campaigns, SEO targets, and ten Slack threads about font size, so content becomes a box to tick, not a craft to care about. I was working with an eCommerce brand recently, and (understandably) blog content was not at the top of their marketing to-do list, let alone their business priority list.
As a result, they were farming out ‘nothing’ pieces, in an attempt to keep the blog alive and draw in more organic traffic. However, what was actually happening was that their blog efforts were reducing organic traffic!
Instead of their 10 generic articles on the industry, they were much better suited spending that time crafting two brilliant case studies. It’s the modern-day content velocity trap, something I’ve talked about before at length on this blog.
Sometimes it’s process. A writer creates a decent draft. Then it gets reviewed, watered down, reworded, and stripped of personality until it’s “on brand” (read: bland). T
he end result?
Something technically correct but totally lifeless. Every brand has a tone of voice, even the silent ones.
And sometimes? It’s the AI trap.
A tool like ChatGPT suggests a blog outline, fills it out with surface-level advice, and because it sounds clean and coherent, nobody questions it.
You get a full page of text that ticks the brief, but misses the point.
Add in vague tone guidance, rushed approvals, and a desire to “sound professional,” and it’s no wonder so many sites end up sounding the same.
The problem? Your readers notice. And the more content they scroll that could’ve come from anyone, the less likely they are to trust that it actually came from you.
The Self-Diagnosis Checklist
So, how do you know if your content’s veering into generic territory?
You don’t need a full brand audit to find out. Just grab a page (homepage, blog post, About section) and run it through this quick checklist.
No AI detectors. No SEO tools. Just simple, human questions that reveal whether your copy is building trust or not.
Safe Content is the Riskiest Kind
If there’s one takeaway here, it’s this: forgettable content is a slow brand killer.
It doesn’t scream “this is bad.” It whispers, “This isn’t worth your time.” And over time, that whisper turns into a habit of ignoring your emails, skipping your blog posts, and never quite trusting what you say.
But the good news? You don’t need to overhaul everything. You just need to be more deliberate. About your tone. Your perspective. Your proof.
Because the opposite of generic isn’t outrageous or risky.
It’s honest. Clear. Confident.
If your content sounds like you, speaks to them, and reflects something real, you’re already ahead of 90% of the web.
Now go audit a few pages. Pick one and give it a voice. A spine. A point of view.
If you suspect your site’s got a case of the generics, I can help you spot the leaks and sharpen your voice. Drop me a note at graeme@gwcontent.co.uk and let’s make your content sound like you again.
