Nobody is perfect, and many marketing experts are bound to get a strikeout from time to time when creating online content. However, there are common pratfalls to avoid and learn from, and doing so will increase your Web content’s effectiveness.
Here are some content mistakes that experts routinely make:
Overthink the Content
Many marketing experts place too much value on SEO, filling their content with keyword after keyword in the hopes that search engines will pick up on their content. At the end of the day, what’s posted is something that doesn’t focus on the end-user. In other words, it becomes sub-par content. Writing naturally is better, as that will allow people who view the content to actually gleam what you’re trying to say. While it is important to be found, it is far better to be understood.
Quit Too Soon
Anyone creating an online platform can often wait years for it to take off, whether it is a blog or social/content marketing. However, marketers tend to become too focused on immediate returns on investment, and, when something fails to catch fire right away, they give up too soon. It takes time to build something successful online. And when that success comes, it often then feels like it happened overnight. So, patience, grasshopper.
Focus Too Much on Everything
Marketers tend to put too much emphasis on linking to everything on their site and trying to capture everything with their Web content, when, in actual fact, the 20/80 rule is actually true. That is to say, chances are that 20 percent of your pages will drive 80 percent of your sales. Spend more time focusing on the pages that generate sales, and less time on pages that aren’t as sales prone.
Use Lots of Images, But No Text
Some marketers have a tendency to post a video, picture or infographic without any text on the page to go along with it. You need text to go along with the image in order for the search engines to know what is actually in it. So have something to say about your image. Many, if not most, people will find you through a search engine.
Use Lots of Text, But No Images
Conversely, some marketers believe that written content is king, and don’t employ photos or videos – which tend to be the things that really engage people – with the content. Sprinkle in some images with the content, like watering a flower.
Focus Too Much on Yourself/Your Company
Any Web content needs to focus squarely on the end user, but some marketers feel as though they have to brag about their product or service. That is anathema to the reader, who will quickly zone out and leave your site/blog. Tell the reader what you can do for them in a natural way.
Overlook Calls to Action
Experts sometimes overlook giving someone who has just read their content a call to action. You have to think about what the next step is in the sales funnel for anyone who has viewed your content. Avoid getting people to make the ultimate call to action – talking to a sales representative – too soon, unless that, of course, is what you want people to do right away.
Create Content with a Lack of Substance
Many experts are actually afraid to have any sort of opinion to avoid angering readers. This creates non-gutsy content that actually has little value in the real world. These posts or pages will be eventually ignored by visitors.
Forget to Engage the Audience
Too many marketers forget to engage their audience by commenting, replying to questions, creating questions and so on with their blogs or Web content. By creating content that just goes in one direction, the audience usually goes elsewhere for the engagement level that they want. Online communication is a two-way street.
Use Content as a Postscript
Web content often runs separately from social media efforts, white papers and webinars, when, in fact, it should be used to tie everything together. In the end, audiences are left with piecemeal information that’s just dumped on the Web, instead of having content guide them into another sales channel. Let your blog or Web content lead the reader, and make it the forefront of your marketing efforts.