You might be familiar with the adage, “content is king.” While this is referenced all the time in the digital marketing world, it’s important to remember that not all content is created equal. And while 84% of people expect brands they love to create content, that doesn’t mean the content you create for your business will help you achieve your goals. If you make one (or more!) of the following three mistakes, you might be missing the mark with your content. Here are three missteps you’ll want to avoid.

MISTAKE: Creating Content With No Strategy

For some people, coming up with content ideas is the hardest part. But if you’re bursting with possibilities for your blog, defining your strategy might actually be the bigger hurdle for you. Ultimately, all of the content you create needs to support a larger strategy (or goal) for your business. This strategy will define how you optimize for search engines, as well as the topics that will guide your writing. If you don’t have an overarching strategy, the content you create will feel disorganized and won’t help you address different challenges. You need a main focus for your content marketing in order for your brand to resonate with (or even reach) your audience.

MISTAKE: Publishing Content On a Sporadic Basis

When you’re handling your content marketing in-house rather than working with a professional SEO firm, it’s easy to let content creation go on the back burner. Unfortunately, this can create issues for your search engine optimization efforts. Google wants to see fresh content published on a regular basis, so you need to create a consistent content calendar and stick to it as best you can. Not only can this help your rankings, but it can also provide you with a constant way to promote your business through social media. Consistency is key when you optimize for search engines, so make sure you have the internal resources necessary for this commitment. If you don’t, consider working with a provider of SEO services.

MISTAKE: Writing Content Just For Search Engines

Some businesses think that when you optimize for search engines, it doesn’t matter what the human experience is. But actually, you should be writing for human visitors first. As Google has improved its algorithm, it’s gotten better at discerning which pages provide valuable content and which ones are trying to game the system. While tactics like keyword stuffing worked once upon a time, the best website content today is optimized for Google but written with real people in mind. If the content you create doesn’t provide real value to web visitors, you’re going to have trouble achieving your goals or even ranking well in SERPs.

Of course, these aren’t the only content marketing mistakes businesses make when they’re trying to do it all themselves. But if your goal is to be found online and to improve your brand perception, you need high-quality content published on a consistent basis. We’re here to help you with your content marketing and SEO needs so you can avoid these scenarios entirely. For more information, please contact us today.