Marketing your content is one of the best ways to increase your brand awareness and boost your SEO presence and eventual ranking on any search engine SERP. Like everything else about building your brand awareness and driving traffic, it takes time and is an ongoing process. There are some rookie mistakes that many small companies make when they begin their content marketing strategies and here are just a few you need to avoid:
- There is no vision thing. You must have a plan with regard to how you will present yourself, your company and the type of content you are going to offer. Also, you had better know who your demographic is and where you can find them. Keep it targeted. You can’t go volume and try and appeal to everyone.
- You aren’t documenting and analyzing your metrics and data. You can’t measure your ROI and be able to determine if your vision and SEO plan or your content has met with any success. You need to know your definition for success or you will ever get there.
- Not enough keyword research, you are stuffing and you don’t optimize. Far too many small companies simply don’t make the effort to do some serious keyword research and make a comprehensive list. They also don’t take long tail semantic phrases into account either when, much of the time, those are even more effective than just a single key word. If you are still keyword stuffing then you need some serious professional help with regard to your SEO and content strategy because it is clear that you don’t know what you are doing. In addition, take the time to discuss with your team or outside firm how to optimize your site so that your keywords are prominent above all else. Forget the graphics heavy approach at the top of a page. Put that below some strategic text. Makes it easier for the bots and the spiders to find you.
- You are forgetting who you are talking to. You must know your audience and what they are looking for. It’s not about you. It’s about them. If you aren’t bringing added value into their lives or solving a pressing problem for them, you are not going to be successful. Forget the hard sell and start creating an avenue of conversational engagement designed to keep them coming to your site and spreading the word about your company.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
