Anyone that owns a website or develops them for other people should know that content is king. It?s a massive SEO ranking factor, it improves the user experience of a site, and it pretty much will determine whether or not you generate leads or make sales.
You?d think that creating content for a website is easy, and yet, so many people continue to make the same mistakes. Here are some of the most common ones that you need to stop making right now:
Not having any consistency
Content has to be delivered consistently or else an audience will lose interest. If you have a blog, then you absolutely need to keep adding content all the time on a regular basis. This is how you start to grow an audience, but it?s also an effective way of driving traffic to your site with more consistency. Now, there are companies out there like VistaComm that use things called editorial calendars to help schedule content. Everyone should have something like this to ensure they stay on top of their content and are putting it out regularly, in tune with current events.
Stuffing keywords everywhere
I think the majority of people reading this are guilty of keyword stuffing at some point. Everyone?s been there; we believe that putting as many of our target keywords in our content as possible will lead to better SEO results. In reality, it does the opposite, and we slide down the rankings. Whether it?s simple website copy or a full-on blog post, use keywords naturally and never stuff them to try and improve your ranking.
Only producing one type of content
Another highly common mistake is to only create one form of content. For example, all the content on your site is written, and you have no visual content at all. A few photos or videos here and there will break things up, provide new ways of engaging with users and make your site a lot better on the whole. Also, with regards to written content, you should mix up your word limits as well. Create short-form content that just a couple of hundred words, and then have long-form stuff that?s over a thousand words.
Creating content with no value or substance
Every piece of content on your website must carry some sort of value. It has to have substance, it needs to give users something. An easy example of this is a business website homepage; there must be content on here that explains your business to the user. The same goes for blog posts; they should either explain things to people or entertain them. Otherwise, your content serves no purpose, and it?s essentially useless.
If you?re guilty of making any of these mistakes, then you need to stop right now! With the right content strategy, you will vastly improve your website. Your search rankings will go through the roof, more traffic will come, and people will stay on your site long enough to be converted into a lead.
