Why is good content marketing so important?
Let’s face it, your business needs content. And good content marketing will get you visitors through the door and showcase your expertise to potential clients.
But what happens when you put your heart and soul (and valuable time) into creating content and nothing happens? Or your visitor stops by and decides your content isn’t for them? Cue speedy exit and another bounce from your website.
As content writers and editors, we see the same mistakes made by small businesses time and time again. These mistakes are easily fixed. And once you know how to fix them, you can take action and get yourself back on the content track – and your customer onto your sales train.
Good content marketing headlines
Headlines are so important. The internet is a noisy place and you need to attract attention. The purpose of your headline is to grab your reader’s attention and get them to read the first line of your article. On average, 8 out of 10 people read a headline while only 2 out of 10 go on to read the body of the content.
Make your headline specific and attention-grabbing. Offer to solve a problem your target reader has. Don’t oversell and be clickbait. Make sure your content delivers on your headline’s promise.
Use numbers e.g. 5 ways to get anyone to read your article
Or a ‘How-to’ e.g. How to get anyone to read your article.
Try combining them: How to get anyone to read your article: 5 easy steps
Does your digital content fail to get you found?
One of the key benefits of content marketing is increased online visibility. If you’re creating content, you want people to find it. Otherwise, what’s the point?
You need to include relevant keywords in your content marketing to get you found in search engine results. Beware of over-stuffing your text full of keywords though, it won’t sound natural.
Include your main keyword in your heading, first paragraph, last paragraph and sub-headings. Sub-headings are great – they’re the power-house of your article. They make your content look good and get picked up by search engines.
A second reason your content isn’t getting found is lack of promotion. Do you subscribe to the ‘build it and they will come’ ethos? Don’t! Just because you publish something doesn’t mean it’ll get found. No promotion is akin to letting traffic find you by chance. Is that how you want to run your business?
Effective content marketing includes promoting your content on social media platforms where your ideal reader hangs out. Send out regular messages using snippets from your content. Then use Google Analytics to see what your best content is and create more of it. Reuse your best content in various forms across different platforms e.g. turn a blog post into a slide deck or infographic.
Wrong topic for your ideal reader
Are you giving your reader valuable information? Teaching them something, entertaining them or solving a problem? No? That’s a mistake. Make your message about your reader. What’s in it for them? Don’t make them think ‘so what?’
Understand what your ideal reader is interested in and write around these topics. Avoid making your topic too broad. Narrow it down to give focus. Also avoid it being too niche that only one person will be interested.
No visuals
You only have a few seconds to keep your reader’s attention. You may well have created incredible, keyword rich, content marketing, but if you present your viewers with a wall of text, they’ll run screaming. Or hit the back button.
- Break up the text.
- Use three or four lines per paragraph.
- Use bullet points.
- Insert quotes using block-quote styling, or images.
- Ensure you include sub-headings.
- They help your reader scan your article.
- A great feature image will also help you stand out when promoting on social media.
Bland Content – your words lack flavor
Without flavour your words come across as bland and tasteless. But adding spice to your content doesn’t mean peppering your text with chewy morsels such as very, actually, just or really. These don’t add anything and just bloat your sentences. Also avoid garnishing with gushing adjectives like: amazing, wonderful, successful or ultimate.
Edit your content to spot weak phrases. Cut out stale, empty words and replace with stronger alternatives. If your content is adjective-heavy, see if you can remove some of them. If your sentence still reads fine, then you know the adjective can go.
No call to action…
You need to ask your reader to do something. Think about why you want them to read your content and what you want them to do next. Do you want them to sign up for an email newsletter? To share the content with colleagues? To book a sales call? This is your call to action. Your content may tick all the boxes. But if you don’t ask the reader to do something once they’ve finished, then your content won’t get you the results you need.
Add one call to action to each piece of content you generate. Make it clear what the reader should do once they’ve finished reading.
Inconsistent publishing
Do you push out loads of content one month on various platforms and none the next? OK, you’re busy. But if you want results from your content – leads, search engine rankings, whatever, you need to be consistent. Good content marketing is more of a marathon than a sprint.
Good content marketing means planning your content in advance. Note down what you want to publish, on which platform and when. Use time-saving tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule social media updates for the month ahead. You’ll get more traction and your efforts begin generating the positive results you want.
Your digital content needs to be in good shape if you want a decent online presence. But in most cases, you only need to make a few tweaks to your existing content to see positive results.
