Content marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) work hand-in-hand to drive valuable traffic to your site and make you an authority in your industry. One of the best ways to drive traffic and boost your authority is to blog and then market your blog posts. But before you start, there are some mistakes content marketers make that you should avoid making such as:

Not Defining Your Audience

A mistake made too often by content marketers is failing to define their target audience. If you’re creating content for the wrong audience, you’re wasting your time. Remember that every audience reads different sites and needs different solutions for their issues.

You should define your audience and then produce your content, focusing on the interests and needs of this group of people. Once you get started producing content for the right audience, you’ll find it easier to come up with topics to write about.

Producing Tons of Content

Many content marketers produce loads and loads of content because they think more is better in terms of ranking high in Google. However, what Google (and your audience) really wants is quality, consistent, and predictable content. When it’s time to add content to your website or blog, make sure it’s information your readers want to see. Never just produce content for the heck of it. When you provide quality and value, you’ll get the results you’re aiming for.

Failing to Proofread and Edit

Because Google and your readers place a high value on quality when it comes to content, you should not get into the habit of failing to proofread and edit your content. While it may seem easy to throw some words together, those words may not provide any value if they’re full of grammatical errors or lacking substance. Your goal should always be to produce excellent quality content that’s informative and enjoyable to read.

Using Dull Headlines

People like the ‘Wow!’ factor when it comes to headlines. Did you know that only 2 out of every 10 people who read your headlines will actually take the time to read the rest of your content? Focus on creating headlines that turn heads like those creating a sense of urgency or mystery or headlines that promise solutions to problems your audience often has.

Not Promoting Content

Many content marketers fail to promote the content they produce. If you’re producing content for your site and blog and just leaving it there to be found by Google searchers, you’re missing out on a lot of potential traffic. With social media being all the rage today, you should be sharing and tweeting your content regularly. Take the time to find out what social sites your targeted audience is the most active on. Then find out what types of content they want to consume. If they like articles, give them articles. If it’s research reports they prefer, give them research reports. And by all means, engage with your followers by responding when they comment or ask questions.

Being Too Eager to Sell

Everyone who visits your site or blog knows that you are trying to promote and sell your products and/or services. Of course, you should be working on generating leads and converting more readers into paid customers. Just don’t overdo it. Too much selling in your content looks desperate and cheap. Instead of going overboard with your selling, aim for giving your audience good quality content that will help you become more credible and trustworthy in their eyes. Otherwise, you’ll be viewed as a greedy self-promotor who is only interested in making money and nothing else.

If you want to up your content marketing game, stop making these common mistakes that can cripple your return on investment (ROI). Remember to always keep your audience in mind when creating content and to optimise that content for good rankings in Google.

One common mistake made by those without the right seo expert services company, is not understanding the connection between SEO and content marketing. By better understanding this link, you can ensure your efforts are high-quality, white hat and that much more effective.