Posted On: Jun 23, 2021
Posted By: John Duff

Marketing your content the right way could be the difference between ranking high in search results and struggling to get any traffic at all. Of course, great content is a big part of the equation, but content marketing can be a game-changer. It decides whether your content will get smooth organic traffic from Google or will be among those 90.63% unfortunate ones that get no organic search traffic.

The content marketing space is crowded – 7.5 million blog posts get published every day. This means to reach your target audience; you have to tread with caution and avoid these common content marketing mistakes.

Not researching what your audience wants:

Sure, you can write on trending topics of your choice but is that what your target audience really wants? Can your audience relate to your content? If no is your answer to these questions, you are missing the mark. So how do you fix this mistake?

Research your target audience’s interests. Most marketers have a misconception that any content will drive traffic. While it may get you some visitors, it will not get you the “right traffic.” Here are some free and easy-to-use methods to know your audience’s interests.

  • Head to the Facebook Ads Manager, then go to the “Audience Insights” tab. Here you can get important insights about your audience and what appeals to them.
Source: Blog.hootsuite.com
  • Another approach is to go to the “page likes” tab on Facebook to see what people are engaging with. You can find out what content they actively engage with and which pages they like and follow.
Source: Sproutsocial.com
  • You can check your own website and your competitor’s website to find out the most popular content.

 

Not making use of topic clusters:

If you really want to conquer your content marketing plan, focusing merely on keywords won’t help you get your desired results. The topic cluster model can help you attract organic web traffic and have a more organized approach to content creation.

So what are topic clusters, and what can they do for your content marketing strategy?

Centered around a single topic, the topic clusters offer numerous internal linking opportunities to keep readers on your site.

A topic cluster will consist of these two elements:

  • Pillar Page. The pillar page will be broad and cover key aspects of a topic relevant to your company. The pillar page will link to multiple topic cluster pages.
  • Topic cluster. These are sub-categories that cover different keywords related to that topic in-depth. Topic clusters answer specific questions about your broad topic and link back to the pillar page.
Source: HubSpot.com

Let’s understand it this way – if you have created a guide to email marketing. That will be your core topic – your pillar page. Your subtopics or topic clusters will be – What is email marketing? Types of email marketing, tools for email marketers, etc.

As per HubSpot, topic clusters result in a better organic ranking. In fact, Google also wants you to adopt this strategy. According to Google Webmaster Guidelines, you must have a clear conceptual page hierarchy.

These important points must be addressed when using the topic cluster model.

  • Your pillar page should link to all cluster topics.
  • The cluster pages should link once to the pillar page.
  • Link your cluster page to other cluster pages. The flow should be natural; it shouldn’t look forced.
  • Cluster pages should cover only one subtopic in detail. Never digress from the main topic.
  • Follow SEO best practices.

 

Not using different forms of content:

If you have a blog that just contains big blocks of text and no images or videos to break it up, it won’t appeal to your audience at all. But just adding one or two images to your content will not do much good to your content either because images alone are not engaging enough. So how do you increase audience engagement?

By adding infographics and videos to your content. People love watching videos and infographics. In fact, 41.5% of marketers reveal that infographics get more engagement than other forms of content.

Below are some more compelling reasons to use visuals in your content.

Source: Codecondo.com

So how to make your text content stand out using visuals? Switch up your content delivery method.

  • Convert your text content into interesting infographics.
  • If you have written a “how to content,” repurposing it into video format can work wonders for your content.

 

Only focusing on viral topics:

A common mistake most content marketers make is focusing only on trending topics. Sure, viral topics do get you a short boost of traffic, but once the relevance is gone, you get back to the cycle of finding more viral topics.

Evergreen topics, on the other hand, can drive traffic for multiple years. They stay relevant and drives traffic even years after being published. It should always be your top priority.

Now the question arises – how to find evergreen topics? One way to research evergreen topics is to go to Google Trends and explore a specific keyword to see its trend.

Source: Medium.com

If you see a keyword that has experienced a positive climb for multiple years, then it will be your perfect topic for writing evergreen content.

Not paying importance to voice search optimization:

If you are not paying importance to voice search optimization, you miss out on a great opportunity to improve your organic traffic. 50% of people today use voice search to buy or order an item. Smart speakers are an inseparable part of people’s lives now.

Voice search is the future of web search; here’s how you can get started:

  • Use long-tail phrases: The focus of the web search has shifted from just keywords to long-tail keywords. Voice search makes use of natural language. For example, a person using voice search would say, “ How can a B2B business benefit from data cleansing?” as opposed to – “data cleansing benefits.”
  • Be specific: When people talk to their virtual assistants, they ask very specific questions, like – “Find the best B2B marketing companies in New York.” Therefore, it is crucial to optimize your content for specific queries.

 

Last but not least, Not promoting your content enough:

After you have toiled so much to write and edit your content, it’s very important to promote it. Waiting, hoping, and praying that people find your blog posts is a big mistake. Even if your content is extremely well-researched and well-written, it won’t get you the desired results unless promoted well.

  • Writing guest posts is a great method of proving your authority to your target audience.
  • Some other channels of promotion are – Email and social media.
  • Besides promoting your content regularly, updating it is also very important. It can double your monthly leads and increase the organic traffic by a whopping 106%.

Conclusion

Content marketing can really up your marketing game, provided you do it right. By avoiding the above mistakes or fixing them, you can drive high-traffic numbers and high-quality leads.