Content is king. Whether you are writing a blog, product description, or shooting a video, the only thing that is going to rank your brand is content. The better the quality, the better results you can expect.
What many do not realize is that they make many mistakes when creating content. This is fine—content creation is a journey, and we all have to learn new techniques along the way.
To help you grow faster, I am going to share the top ten common mistakes to avoid when creating content for your website.
These are:
- Writing winding posts
- Not putting a call to action
- Doing poor keyword research
- Not optimizing for search engines
- Writing for yourself instead of the readers
- Writing with poor structure
- Not using relevant images
- Failing to outdo the competition
- Putting too many ads
- Poor writing style
All of these things are mistakes that negatively affect not just your search engine rankings, but how your readers perceive you. Let us go through each one, and I hope you can start correcting these errors from your blog soon.
1. Writing winding posts
While it is true that long posts are better, this technique usually makes bloggers beat around the bush. Readers hate it when they have to sift through your articles to get a decent answer.
This problem usually occurs when you are writing a response post. A response post is an article where you are attempting to answer a question. In a blog post like this, it is always better to give a concrete answer in the beginning and then explain your position later on.
2. Not putting a call to action
In every article, you must put call-to-action or CTA in the appropriate areas. These are buttons or anchor texts that encourage a user to do something.
Many people think that CTA only applies in situations where you are selling a product, like if you are a course creator or an affiliate marketer. This isn’t so. If you do not have a product, you have to encourage your readers to visit your other pages.
CTA is an important aspect of internet marketing. People will never know what to click or what to buy unless you show them a link or a button.
3. Doing poor keyword research
Despite all the algorithmic advances of Google, a keyword is still one of the basic components of content. There are experts who claim that you just have to write naturally.
The problem with this principle is that if you do not use keywords, you are not optimizing your content for search engines and people.
For one, search engines are robots—they index what they see. If your article does not target specific keywords that you are ranking for, there is no way a search engine is going to index your article in its system for that specific search phrase.
Next, you will only succeed in creating content if you write what people are looking for. What this means is that people will find your article only if they are looking for it. And this is why you use keywords—you want to use words that have a high search volume.
4. Not optimizing for search engines
In relation to keywords, you need to understand where to place them.
Here are the best areas where you need to put the keyword:
• Title page
• Meta-description
• Body of the text
• At least in one sub-heading
You may have the right keyword, but if it is not used in the right places, it will not bring traffic to your content. But make no mistake: do not stuff your content with the same keywords.
While there is no real data to say how many times you should use a keyword, the general consensus is that it should not be more than 3%.
5. Writing for yourself instead of the readers
It is okay to write about your experiences. After all, people love stories. What goes wrong when people are creating content is that the article becomes about them.
The key to writing good content is value. Here are some tips to consider:
• Solve a problem – publish content that provides clarification on how to solve an issue
• Provide options – write reviews and listicles that give the reader choices
• Give instructions – provide step by step instructions to readers who need guidance.
Articles that give value are those that people read. And the longer they stay on your page, the more likely Google is going to put your pages at the top of the rankings.
6. Writing with poor structure
Do not write articles with big blocks of texts. You must also divide your articles into sections, or subheadings. It is easier to digest information this way.
Here is a highly recommend structure for writing articles:
• Introduction
• Sub-headings
• Summary
Another common mistake is when people are writing about the pros and cons—they write several seemingly obvious paragraphs that are no longer needed. For example, if you are writing about the pros and cons of blogging, you no longer have to write about “what is blogging?”
Why? Readers do not need that information anymore. If you are writing about the pros and cons, start with an intro, then jump into the list right away.
7. Not using relevant images
Visual art matter to content marketing. Do not underestimate the power of graphic arts. If you are writing instructional material, show screenshots. If you are writing about a listicle, show the images of the products you are recommending.
It is also a great idea to use infographics in your article. Readers find it easier to understand the principles if you use images.
8. Failing to outdo the competition
There is a thing called skyscraper technique. It is a process where you write content that is better than the top-ranking ones.
If you do not even attempt to outdo your competition, you do not stand a chance ranking high in the search engine result pages (SERPs). There is a reason these articles are at the top: they are the best.
If you are writing a similar post, make sure you write something that is more in-depth—create something that is better.
9. Putting too many ads
Do not put too many ads on your pages. People hate it when they see ads. If people come to your site, they want to read. They are likely to leave you page if there are so many ads.
Also, ads make your page load slower. They contain a lot of scripts that make it difficult for browsers and servers to show the content of the site.
10. Poor writing style
The last mistake is when people write in a style that is not optimal for readers. You see, there are those who want to look smart—they use words that we do not use in a typical conversation.
Do not do this. You are discouraging people from reading your content if you are an intellectual wannabe. Use simple words in your blog posts. Write like as if you are talking to a friend.
Summary
It is fine to make mistakes. But as we discover that these errors are bad for business, we need to take action and fix them. If you have already published dozens in your blog, it will help that you optimize at least one each week. You can also hire an affordable freelance writer to do it for you.
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