Is your content marketing plan cutting it? Are you stuck using outdated methods that may be hindering new growth? Not sure how to take advantage of new opportunities?

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, content marketing was evolving faster than ever as creators around the world started taking advantage of its benefits and ROI. Now, with more people working and shopping from home, organic search traffic has become a valuable asset to large and small businesses. This has resulted in new Google algorithms, SEO guidelines, and social media strategies over the last few years.

When it comes to attracting and maintaining new customers, there are a wide variety of marketing mistakes that could be keeping you from reaching your goals. That’s why it’s important to review some of the most common content marketing mistakes businesses often make so that you can avoid them.

Not Publishing Enough Blog Content

With nearly 2 billion websites on the web, nearly 500 million of them have blogs. However, not even half of those websites publish content on a regular basis. While a website is an essential part of your business, an active website is crucial. Companies that publish regular blog content get nearly 70% more traffic leads per month than those that don’t. Regular blog content not only increases organic web traffic but can also be shared on social media and boost your rankings on Google.

If you have a blog but rarely publish new content, you should be. At Thrive Web Designs, we have clients that blog once a week and have seen firsthand the high revenue it brings in for them. That’s why it’s definitely worth the time and effort. If you’ve been lazy about publishing blogs on your website, try adding some time to your calendar each week to stay on top of this lucrative content marketing opportunity.

Failing to Utilize Social Media

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter provide a wide variety of free ways to market your business. However, not everyone is on board or willing to invest the time it takes to manage their pages. Furthermore, even if you have social media for your company, you may miss out on some lucrative marketing opportunities if you aren’t paying attention to your audience, followers, or competitors. Taking the time to create posts, share content, and engage with users will do wonders for your reach efforts. Not only will it show you care about your customers, but you’ll learn how your online audience reacts to your business. If you don’t have a social media presence, you could be losing out on thousands of potential customers. Not Proofreading Your Content

Sounds silly, right? However, failing to proofread your content could result in spelling and grammar mistakes that cause people to cringe. It’s honestly a super annoying mistake that can cost you potential business if people can’t take you seriously. That’s why it’s essential to proofread your content and use a spellchecker or app like Grammarly to provide you with an extra set of eyes before you publish anything online. There’s nothing more unprofessional than misspelled words or random grammar mistakes.

Not Exercising the Best SEO Practices

SEO can quickly become a headache trying to keep up with all the ever-evolving guidelines, algorithms, and AI technology. However, that’s no excuse for not exercising the best SEO (search engine optimization) practices. By ignoring the best ways to develop content, failing to target important keywords or long-tail phrases, or not posting content at all, you’ll miss important opportunities that will put you higher on the list of top search result rankings.

Pushing Low-Quality Content

With over 70% of people getting their news and content online than any other source, it’s essential that your posts are credible, thoughtful, and well-written. In the past, the general amount of time to write a blog was 2 ½ hours. Today, that time has increased to nearly 4 hours due to the need to produce larger amounts of content that people find interesting. Pushing low-quality or irrelevant content that you crank out isn’t going to connect with your audience, and Google won’t reward you for it either. People and search engines alike expect well-written, easy-to-read, useful information.

Failing to Expand Tactics

As the old saying goes, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” This goes for content marketing as well. With so many different channels at your fingertips, why would you focus on only one? Think about it this way; certain age groups prefer different social media platforms. If you’re trying to market to millennials, you wouldn’t want to push all of your content on Facebook when most of your potential customers are on Instagram. Furthermore, certain tactics can’t even be applied to all channels. A good example of this is images on Instagram, videos on TikTok, and articles on Facebook. This means you’ll need a mix of all three to maintain your online presence for each one.

Not Having Goals

If you’re hoping to draw in potential customers, it’s important to set goals for your content marketing. Take the time to understand your audience, what they need and want, and set goals to develop your content around these things using search terms they might use to find you. If you don’t analyze and understand your audience’s behavior and preferences, you may end up with a stale online presence. Next, make a plan to post your content at the right time using different channels. Publishing a blog post on your website is different from scheduling a tweet or sharing an image on Instagram. The content you share on different platforms all depends on your online audience and what their needs are. After all, strategy is the foundation on which your content marketing should be built.

Failing to Optimize for Mobile

Think of how many times you look at your phone each day. If you’re like most people, the answer is a lot. That’s just how addicted we really are. In today’s world, we use our phones for a wide variety of things, from scrolling social media to searching Google to shopping online. That’s why it’s essential to optimize your website for mobile. If you don’t, people will simply move on if they can’t view your content correctly. Furthermore, people want instant gratification. They don’t want to read through paragraphs of text just to get the information they need. Instead, it’s important to get to the point and provide users with quick snippets of information that’s organized with proper headings that can be skimmed easily.

Ignoring Your Customers

In today’s world, people expect immediate responses from the companies they contact online. Whether it’s a contact form, phone call, live chat, or a comment on a social media post, it’s essential to respond to your customers in a timely fashion. If you don’t, this can pose a serious problem. Ignoring customers isn’t a good look for your company. This is especially true when it comes to social media, and people see a lot of comments on a post but no responses from a company. It not only sends a red flag that you’re not trustworthy but that they shouldn’t spend their money on a business that doesn’t engage with their customers. Keep in mind that when you respond, whether it’s on social media or an online review, your reply is public, and other people will read them. Take the time to choose your words carefully and professionally, even if you are responding to an angry customer.

Not Tracking Analytical Data

If you’re aiming for a high-preforming content marketing strategy, it’s essential to review its analytical data to see what’s working and what’s not. Are there any trends that stand out? Who’s your audience demographic? What platforms and content are people engaging with the most? If you don’t measure this important data, you won’t be able to gauge your level of success and apply those lessons to your future content strategy.

Thrive Web Designs

In the end, we all make mistakes. However, it’s best to learn from those mistakes and turn failures into success. That’s why it’s important to know what not to do to help you stay on the right track while reducing any setbacks. If you would like to learn more ways to improve your content marketing strategy, contact the professionals at Thrive Web Design by filling out our online form or give us a call at (208) 391.2504. We can help be the engine for your business that creates real and lasting results.


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