You’ve been putting your best foot forward with your content marketing strategy. You’ve implemented a variety of tools, strategies, and techniques to boost your traffic and your business. The problem is, that boost isn’t what you’d hope it would be–if it’s a boost at all.
Let’s face it, even the most well-intentioned business owners make content marketing mistakes…and these seemingly small mistakes could have a massive impact on your content marketing success.
Content marketing mistakes to avoid
Despite your best efforts, these seven content marketing mistakes could be holding you back.
Not defining your reader
Content needs to be created with the reader in mind, first and foremost. The type of content you create for a target audience of people over 65 versus the content you create for a teenage audience is going to be very different. Have you taken this into account?
One of the biggest content marketing mistakes you could be making is creating content YOU want to read, rather than keeping your reader in mind too.
To better reach your audience, you first need to get to know them. To do this, start by doing extensive research into your audience. How old are they? Where do they live? What do they like? Then, work on tailoring your content based on their demographics and interests.
Not determining the goal of each content topic (before writing)
Have you ever started writing something with one idea in mind, and by the end of the first paragraph, you’re on an entirely different tangent about an unrelated topic? It’s a quick way to lose readers’ trust and interest.
To avoid this mistake, all you need to do is get really clear about the goal of your content before creating it.
Do you want to tell your readers about a new service you’re offering? Do you want to tell a personal story? Do you want to sell a specific product?
Figure out your goal, then create your content based on that goal.
Not accounting for SEO
You could be writing Pulitzer Prize-worthy digital content, but without SEO backing it, it simply won’t reach a big audience online. In fact, not accounting for SEO is one of the biggest content marketing mistakes we see. But it doesn’t need to be that way.
Your content needs to include keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for. This also means implementing a number of other SEO strategies, including the use of headings, internal and external links, and meta descriptions.
Failing to account for link building
Link building can seem overwhelming at first. Unfortunately, that means some content marketers give up on it altogether! But it’s worth taking the time and effort to do it right. In fact, the success of your content marketing could depend on it.
Acquiring backlinks to your content is an incredibly important way to build domain authority.
They play a big role in E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trustworthiness: three critical components of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.) Yes—backlinks demonstrate your site’s expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
That means Google is more likely to rank your content as high-quality. In turn, they prioritize it over other content in search engine results.
Not reviewing content performance
When was the last time you did a deep dive into your content analytics? They can tell you a LOT about what’s working and what isn’t. You’ll start to notice what content performs better than the rest, and in turn, you can use this information to tailor your strategy moving forward.
In addition to the topics you write about, it can also tell you a lot about HOW you write and what your readers respond to.
Do you notice that your posts over 500 words get 45% more traffic? Do you notice that your blog posts with a number in the title are 34% more likely to be shared?
These are some of the critical insights you’ll get when you review content performance that you can then use to improve your future content marketing strategy.
Not considering outside experts
Finally, one of the most catastrophic content marketing mistakes we see is not outsourcing your content marketing to the pros.
Not only does it take time to get your content marketing right, but it also takes expertise. If you’re busy running a business, the time and expertise it takes to nail your content marketing strategy could be completely unrealistic.
When you hire content marketing experts to take over, you’ll have all of your bases covered. That way, you can focus on doing what you do best and running your business…all the while knowing these content marketing mistakes aren’t holding you back!
Not to mention, they’ll get your lead generation, inbound marketing, sales nurturing, and account-based marketing all on track for success. At the same time, they’ll quickly identify any mistakes you might have been making and set them straight.
Fix your content marketing mistakes
Now that we’ve covered seven of the biggest content marketing mistakes, what stands out to you? What needs tweaking and what areas have you already covered? Often, it just takes some subtle changes to your strategy to result in massive improvements. So, what are you waiting for? Start today!