Are you tired of being reminded that content is king? While this maxim can be tedious, it's true. According to Inbound Writer, having a blog can lead to an average of 434% more indexed pages in search engines and 97% more external links. A study by Exact Target confirms that 4 out of 5 internet users prefer to learn about a company by reading its content rather than through advertising.
These figures underscore the importance of creating and distributing useful and relevant information for users. According to EMO Marketing, publishing content regularly on a blog is the second most effective action for increasing lead generation. It accounts for 21.59% of total registrations, a percentage only surpassed by landing pages and calls-to-action.
Content is a long-term asset: inbound marketing software firm HubSpot states that 70% of sales opportunities generated on their blog come from old posts.
These and other data highlight the need to design and implement a content strategy. This practice, however, is not without errors that can harm a company's website ranking in search engines and, consequently, organic traffic acquisition.
How can you avoid them?
The Most Frequent Mistakes in Content Generation
Inbound marketing is a relatively new discipline—as we know it today, it emerged in 2006. Many organisations still don't know exactly how to create and distribute content adapted to the needs of digital marketing.
For this reason, they make both technical and strategic errors. To prevent this from happening to your company or business, we've summarised some of the most common mistakes when creating content. Take note!
1) Not setting objectives
To know if content is effective, it's essential to define goals (and quantify them!): increase web traffic, improve the conversion rate from visits to registrations, or get users to download an app or premium content.
Without considering this aspect, a company will never be sure if its content is truly effective.
2) Prioritising quantity over quality
Creating a high volume of articles in a short time usually results in shorter posts, focusing on topics not explored in depth or revolving around issues already common on the internet. When this happens, it's very difficult to unseat articles already indexed in the first position by Google (known as the wall effect).
The solution? Reduce the number of articles, in favour of others that are longer (if possible, over 1,000 words, and never less than 300), original, engaging, and optimised for SEO.
If a company persists in generating a large number of low-quality posts, it risks a potential penalty from Google in its search results.
3) Not creating relevant content for the company's target audience
There's no point in generating quality articles if they don't address topics of interest to the company's target audience. For example, an overly technical article about architecture wouldn't be appropriate for attracting organic traffic if we're dealing with a tourism board's portal (even if it refers to some local buildings), as its followers would primarily be seeking cultural itineraries or leisure activities.
To understand what truly concerns the buyer persona (or ideal customer) of an organisation, it's essential to know which keywords they use in their internet searches. This can be discovered using free tools for finding keywords.
Another way to research the target audience's pain points is to ask open-ended questions through social media, publish questionnaires (e.g., generated with Twitter), or monitor online forums where their followers participate.
4) Using an overly commercial tone
Although the ultimate goal of any company is to increase sales, using advertising language in posts is entirely counterproductive. Those who arrive at a company's articles via search engines are in the first phase of the buying process, known as the top of the funnel or TOFU. At this initial stage, the user is looking for information about a specific need, so they may not yet know the company or its product and service catalogue. What's more: they may not even intend to make a purchase.
Therefore, using aggressive calls-to-action at this early stage can make users uncomfortable and push them towards competitors' websites. To avoid this, it's best to stick to an informative tone, reserving commercial interactions for later.
5) Incorrectly using (or not leveraging) title and heading tags
Although both a webpage's title and headings—the famous <h1> </h1>, <h2> </h2>, etc.—can help improve its ranking in search results, not all companies make the most of them. Some simply use them to format subheadings (or titling elements) in articles, without paying attention to issues that can negatively affect page indexing, as Google considers these variables when establishing its rankings.
Not including relevant keywords for the company's target audience, exceeding 70 characters with spaces in the title, not introducing headings hierarchically—i.e., starting with <h1>, followed by <h2>, etc.—or using <h2> only once are some of the most common mistakes.
6) Not optimising images and videos
Including multimedia material helps improve the web positioning of the page where the post will appear. It's important that these resources are handled correctly. To do this, it's essential to complete the Alt Text attribute and, if possible, include a description that contains some of the keywords desired for that article.
For photographs, Google's search engine prefers 4:3, 16:9, and 16:10 formats.
7) Not (properly) distributing content on social media
Marketers know that the volume of direct traffic (i.e., that which comes from directly typing a URL into the browser bar) is low. Therefore, it's necessary to develop strategies that help the company's target audience find the content they need, which involves working on SEO and, of course, developing an appropriate social media strategy.
Choosing networks based on the platforms used by the company's target audience (for example, what's the point of being on Facebook if the company's audience opts for other channels?), publishing regularly (but without overdoing the number of posts) and at the most convenient times depending on user habits (early morning and evening are usually the most effective slots), and enhancing articles with inspiring or imaginative resources (e.g., a maxim, an animated GIF…) can help maximise content dissemination.
It's important to analyse whether all generated content is suitable for publication on all the company's social profiles. For example, a funny video about pets will hardly fit on a LinkedIn timeline.
Do you need help with your content strategy?
Are you clear about the topics that interest your target audience? Do you know how often you should publish on your corporate blog or across the company's various social media channels? Do you know how to optimise posts for good search engine ranking?
If you have questions regarding your content strategy, contact us or call us on 93 532 93 78. At B2 Performance, we will review your case and advise you without obligation, helping you get the most out of your website. We'd be delighted to help!
