Content marketing sounds like it should be a no-brainer – it’s words on a website page that get people to buy stuff, right?
Well, in a nutshell, yes. However, we all know it’s not as simple as that and if you’re new to this esoteric art, or you’re finding you’re not doing as well as you should, you could be making one or more of these mistakes.
Not researching your keywords
Although content marketing and SEO are separate entities they are inextricably-linked. You can produce content without investing in an SEO campaign, of course, but you’ll be throwing words into the dark. You should do some keyword research before you start – use keyword explorer programmes to generate ideas, look at what your rivals are doing and what your customers are interested in.
Doing too much SEO-ing
There’s such a thing as keyword-stuffing and this’ll get you penalised by Google. Using the same keywords over and over not only earns you the scorn of the search engines, it also reads badly and puts off your visitors.
Choosing quantity over quality
Each post or article you publish is another social media headline, another ping, another page for Google et al to index. You’d think, then, that it’s a case of the more the merrier. Not so, as your quality may suffer and the search engines will notice this. You’ll look like you’re spamming and you’ll actually get less attention and fall down the rankings.
Not choosing quantity at all
It’s a tricky balancing act! You could be an amazing writer and produce the occasional 2,000-word post that gets loads of views, comments and shares. But, you only do this every couple of months and people forget – your online presence loses its mojo and languishes until your next page-turner.
This can mean people forget about you, plus, they may even think you’ve gone out of business and you’ll lose your ranking. It may be that you have to supplement your amazing longform pieces with shorter, easier to write snippets, infographics and other content to reach new readers and customers and keep existing ones in the loop.
Not responding to comments
Everyone gets at least the occasional comment, and as you gather subscribers you’ll get more and more. Each comment is an opportunity to raise your profile, get your brand and personality across and to reach more people.
In some ways, publishing a post is only the start. Once the comments start flooding in, responding to them – even the critical ones – shows you care about your customers. Even a good old row will attract a lot of attention, just conduct yourself professionally!
