Five Common SEO Mistakes That Content Marketers Make
Search
engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are a powerful combination that
can build your website's authority and drive valuable search engine traffic.
Blogging, in particular ,is a popular way to drive website traffic and build
authority in your niche.
However, many people struggle to
get great SEO results from blogging. Here are five common SEO mistakes that
content marketers make when creating and promoting blog articles.
1.
Optimizing Everything for Keywords
Trying to optimize any and all
content for search engine rankings is one big mistakes that marketers make with
blogging. Some SEO enthusiasts might be surprised to learn that not all
successful blogs are so highly focused on SEO.
Here is what Benji Hyam from Grow and Convert for
a virtual summit had to say about keywords. Benji, who grew ThinkApps from zero to 50,000
pageviews a month within six months, said he takes a "content first"
approach, by which he means his focus is on creating great content rather than
obsessing over SEO.
Even if
getting ongoing traffic from SEO is a priority, content that isn't optimized
for keywords can help tremendously.
A great example of how content
not focused on keywords can build authority is Brian Dean's Skyscraper technique. When
Brian first launched the skyscraper technique, the phrase "skyscraper
technique" probably had close to zero search volume.
However, he promoted his post
heavily; and because the article was well written and innovative, he quickly
became one of the most popular experts in the SEO space.
Building his authority and name
recognition allowed him to later rank for more competitive terms, like
"keyword research," when he launched his keyword research guide.
It's much easier to get people to
reply to your email outreach and to obtain natural links to your content when
people are familiar with your brand.
2.
No Internal Linking
Many content marketers and
bloggers are so heavily focused on getting external links that they don't
bother to do much internal linking. Once you gain enough authority for your
website, you can start ranking for keywords from internal linking alone.
Internal links tell search
engines which pages on your website are the most important. This article from Search
Engine Watch gives examples of sites that used internal linking
to achieve higher website rankings.
Make it a habit to link to at
least 1-2 old articles of yours in every new post you write. Linking to old
content from new articles will not only help with SEO but also drive real
traffic to the best articles that you've already written.
3.
Not Promoting Old Posts
Another important bloggers often
fail to do is to promote old but evergreen content. Most bloggers will write a
blog article and then forget about it (which is totally natural; our minds tend
to focus on what we are currently working on).
There are many ways to promote
old content. One way is to update and relaunch an old post. Robbie Richards
took that approach for his SEO tools blog post, which
ended up driving more shares and links to the article, as well as better search
engine rankings.
Here are a few other ways to
promote old articles and content:
- Autoresponders. If you are successful with blogging, you will attract new subscribers to your blog on an ongoing basis. And many of those subscribers probably haven't seen your older blog articles. You can send new subscribers to old content by scheduling emails into your autoresponder linking to old content.
- Ongoing social promotion. People frequently share blog posts on social media when they first publish them. With social media scheduling tools like Buffer and Crate, you can schedule social sharing for old articles so that you can drive social media traffic to them on an ongoing basis.
- Guest-posting mentions. Mentioning your old articles in guest posts on other blogs or on new articles on your own blog is a good way to drive traffic to old blog posts.
- Updating old articles. Sometimes it makes sense to update old articles, and then promote them. People prefer recently updated content over older articles. You can update old posts by adding new resources to them, removing old links that are no longer relevant, or simply adding more content to make the article better or more up to date.
4.
Not Publishing the Right Amount of Content
A lot of blogs are so focused on
creating long form content that stands out that they don't create enough
content. According to an SEO study, 70% of all search traffic comes from
long tail searches.
You can't rank for keywords if
you haven't written content to target those keywords. If you aren't writing
enough content, then you're missing out on a lot of long-tail SEO traffic.
HubSpot did a study and found
that companies that blog 16 or
more times a month get on average 3.5 times more traffic than
companies that blog 0-2 times per month.
Although it is possible to
publish infrequently and still do well, the blogs that generally get the most
traffic are those that publish frequently.
5.
Obsessing Over Content Length
A lot of articles have been
written about how long-form content outperforms short content in SEO and gains
more social media shares. And because long-form content has become so popular,
some blog editors are requiring minimum word counts for their articles.
However, long-form content does
have downsides.
Most people prefer shorter
content, and many won't read longer articles. In fact, readers on average spend only 37 seconds on an
article.
Long content can also take a lot
longer to write, which can make it harder to maintain a consistent publishing
schedule, and it can be more expensive to produce.
Finally, just because content is
long doesn't mean that it is good or it will perform well. And investing a lot
of time and resources into long-form content that doesn't perform well can be
discouraging.
Marketing Profs and Entrepreneur
are good examples of sites that have done well with shorter content. In fact,
these sites have a maximum article length for contributors to prevent people
from writing articles that are too long.
Though
word counts can be suggested as a guideline, editors should be flexible and
consider shorter articles as well—so long as the quality is good. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or e-mail me at john@x2media.us.
X2 Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it is not only seen and heard, but remembered.
Until next month….remember, “you don’t get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression”. Always make it a good one!
From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.
John E. Hornyak
X2Media, LLC
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