Some people are under the impression that content marketing is easy, but anyone who has tried knows writing engaging content that constantly captivates readers is quite a strenuous task. Especially when you’re doing it every day.
With the evolution of the internet, mistakes can easily be amended, however writing everyday can lead content marketers into bad habits ‘ content marketing sins ’. Repeating these habits can go unnoticed and they can project an image you don’t necessarily want your business to represent.
So, if you find yourself guilty of these content marketing sins, it’s never too late to redeem yourself…
Sin 1. Sales
Think more of content marketing as a tool that allows businesses to develop a personality and voice rather than a means of advertising. Too many businesses are using social media platforms, blogs and videos to advertise their products when actually the whole idea behind it is social interaction. Brands on social media that engage and communicate with their social following have a better character than those whose motives are to constantly sell.
Content marketing efforts are not going to instantly convert into sales, so instead of spending time pushing adverts at your prospects offer them useful content that is related to your audience and triggers some sort of social interaction.
Sin 2. Publishing posts to stay fresh
As bad as an inactive blog looks, what looks worse is one with effortless content full of content marketing sins. Posting for the sake of posting is not a good idea. Businesses that routinely publish compelling content that is written for a specific audience ends up looking more professional. Not only that, Google’s algorithms take to rewarding those businesses who post audience specific content, on a routine basis. It’s better to have high quality content with lots of engagement rather than lots of low quality content, with little or no engagement. Make more time for your content.
Sin 3. Keyword stuffing
Repeatedly stuffing content full of keywords in order to rank higher on Google is an SEO tactic that should be left in the past. This thoroughly expired strategy was popular in the early millennium when search engine algorithms ranked pages crammed with page irrelevant keywords. However, people were taking that much of an advantage of the flaw that content was becoming unreadable to a human audience.
Since then Google have adopted the means of updating their algorithms (Hummingbird and Penguin) that allow those pages that are rich with relevant information, are user friendly and flow naturally to be rewarded with higher positions. Those that abuse search engines webmaster guidelines by infusing an abundance of irrelevant keywords into their content do not go unnoticed and are penalised with lower search engine rankings.
Keyword stuffing your content is considered black hat SEO, it is never rewarding ,can have a really negative effect on your business and is possibly the biggest content marketing sin of all time.
Sin 4. Too Branded
There is nothing wrong with adding your logo or companies name to the content you create. However, it isn’t the be all and end all for self-promotion. The most successful content marketing campaigns are usually lightly branded. People have been conditioned to ignore anything that looks like an ad, so think less of how you’re going to promote your brand in your content and more on the content itself.
Sin 5. Tracking
For content writers, metrics are crucial. Posting content without tracking performance leaves you blind sighted when creating more content in the future. Without tracking it’s difficult to determine which content is popular with your audience and which is not. Having something to refer back to always gives writers guidance which allows them to improve their content.