Content is foundational for digital marketing and SEO. Hence, having an effective content marketing strategy in place is crucial. And for that, you need to ensure that you are doing everything right. That being said, let’s talk about the dos and don’ts of content marketing.
Digital marketing and SEO is impossible without content. Your content is the medium through which you communicate with your target market, develop and amplify your brand voice, reflect your expertise, educate your audience, guide them through the customer journey, and so on. In simple words, marketing is greatly dependent on content. And hence, content marketing is crucial.
However, in order to make it work, you need to ensure that you are doing it right. And we’re going to help you with just that. For one, there are a number of common mistakes that content marketers make. And then, there are a number of important things they miss to do. In order to have a successful content marketing campaign, you need to be aware of such things.
That being said, let’s talk about the…
Dos and don’ts of content marketing
The Dos
#Define goals
A common mistake that content marketers make is not set a goal. What are you trying to achieve with a certain content marketing campaign or a certain piece of content that you have written? Are you trying to engage audience with it, rank on search engines, or simply educate your audience? Make sure you define your goals first and create content accordingly if you want it to be effective.
#Have a particular niche
You can’t write about anything and everything that is famous or trending and expect great content marketing results. In the longer run, it is important that you define a particular niche that you are an expert in. There are a number of reasons you should do that. Firstly, defining a niche that you are an expert in will help you produce high quality content. And this further will allow your audience to trust your content better. Not to mention how important it is for Google’s EAT criteria. So, make sure to define a particular niche.
#Keyword research and placement
There’d be no point in working hard and creating quality content when you can’t even reach your target audience. And in order to do that, you need keywords. Keywords are the set words and phrases used by internet searcher for particular types of queries. In order to ensure that your content rank when your target market makes related search, you need to find out what keywords they use of it. And once you identify and research those keywords, try to incorporate them in your content.
#Reflect brand voice
It is important to ensure that your content reflects your brand voice. Having a distinct brand voice can give your business a competitive edge in digital marketing. And content marketing is the best way to develop and amplify your brand voice. So, make sure that all your content pieces reflect your brand message. You can do this by defining standards for the way language is used and ensure its consistency throughout all your content pieces. And this way, you will be able to improve your brand awareness and recognition with content marketing.
#Make it easily readable
On the internet, people are mostly looking for content that satisfies their queries easily and quickly. They are looking for simple, short, and quick information. Hence, you need to make sure that your content is easily readable. For that, you should use simple language, simplify longer information into points, keep from using difficult words, keep it short and precise, and so on.
The Don’ts
#Worry too much about the length
Do you think that writing longer content pieces can help you rank? Well, if so is the case, you are mistaken. Search engines like Google are not necessarily looking for longer content. They are more focused on the quality of the content. Indeed the content ranked at top are generally 1k+ words long. However, that is no criterion to get ranked high. It is all about the quality. So, no matter the length of your content, if you can explain a topic nicely enough, you can get it ranked.
#Focus on the number of posts
If you think posting frequently is necessarily good for your SEO or digital marketing, you are mistaken again. It is not about how frequently you post that gets your website ranked but about the quality of your content. So, it’s alright if you don’t post every day. It first important to make sure that you create and post only high quality content.
#Post only promotional content
One of the key goals of content marketing is to educate audience and give them useful information. Posting promotional content once in a while is fine and good but if that is what your whole content marketing campaign is about, you can’t expect much success. So, make sure that providing value to your audience is your primary object and promotion should be a secondary concern.
#Use technical jargons
Using technical jargons that your audience may not be aware of is a bad practice. Remember, people are looking for quick and easy information. And using complex technical jargons can confuse them and as a result, they’d simply end up exiting your website and looker for simpler content somewhere else. Hence, you should avoid using technical jargon and complex industry terms in your content.
#Stuff keywords
Yes, keywords are necessary to get your content rank. However, this doesn’t imply that using too many keywords will make you rank better. Google Search’s algorithm is smart enough to spot keyword stuffing and this can lead to penalization. So, make sure you don’t over-optimize your content with keywords.
Final Word
Content marketing is a crucial form of digital marketing. Hence, for the success of your SEO and other online marketing campaigns, you need to ensure that you are doing it right. And with the help of the dos and don’ts of content marketing as given above, you can do just that!
Got questions? We’d love to answer. Just drop a comment below!
