5 Content Marketing Mistakes Hurting Your SEO Performance

With the ever-changing search pattern and algorithm modifications, it is sometimes hard to keep track of strategies that boost your business and those that can hurt it. However, if you can spot some simple SEO mistakes and fix them, your content will be perfected constantly to become an integrated channel that leads searchers to quality content that can help push them into your sales funnel.

So, what are some of the typical SEO mistakes? Below is a discussion of some of these mistakes with hints on how to address them.

Generating Short Content

When your content is shallow, it might not answer searchers’ needs fully. Google prefers long and comprehensive content that is more likely to respond to searchers’ questions. Using algorithms, it is easier to notice a page that does not meet visitors’ needs since the bounce rate from such a page is high. Thus, if your content draws consistent pogo-sticking behavior from searchers, it may easily fade away from the Top 10 search results on the keywords.

As mentioned earlier, more written text can help boost your page ranking. However, long tiring text without informative context will also increase the bounce rate from the page. You should ensure that your content is adequate to provide most of the answers that your intended searchers are looking for.

The best way to determine the approximate length of your content is to identify target keywords and search them to see how long the content of the Top 3 results on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are. Then try to either match their length or make yours longer and more comprehensive. To topple results above you, you should come up with additional content that searchers will find more valuable.

Selecting Target Keywords Based on Quantity vs. Relevancy

Although the success of your content is mainly determined by the number of people who see it, overemphasis on popular keywords at the expense of other factors is a common mistake. When a content marketer concentrates too much on popular keywords, they either knowingly or unknowingly ignore meaningful engagement.

Although selecting keywords with the highest search volume as the starting point for your new content might seem like the best choice, that is not always the case. When you put a lot of effort into these keywords and forget to sharpen your content to ensure that it matches the search intent for these words, the new content will not serve its purpose. Therefore, instead of blindly using these keywords, consider analyzing the top-ranked results to come up with additional factors to guide your creation and promotion plan.

The simplest solution to this mistake is to Google these keywords. If you analyze the top search outcomes correctly, you will understand what your readers will be looking for. You will then be in a better position to tailor your supporting content to best respond to searchers’ needs.

Disregarding Internal Link Structure

Internal links in SEO are essential in determining content for users and bots alike. A website’s internal link structure informs users and bots about the most significant pages as well as pages that relate most to the specific keywords. When your website links to numerous pages from one anchor text, for instance, users may end up getting confused in finding a page that is sincerely about the intended topic. In other instances, your site may have pages and posts that lack internal links to direct bots (or users). Although the confusion might still attract significant traffic, it does not contribute to your ranking.

The best way to overcome this issue is to ensure that your site’s keyword mapping is developed properly and is up to date. A keyword map will help in identifying the correct anchor text to link to specific pages.

Disregarding Data from Other Digital Tactics

Marketing performance data can be used to plan your next content. Also, this information helps with optimization to achieve better content performance. Any information collected pertaining to how users react to your content is key to ensuring that you improve and produce even better content. Thus, ignoring such information will leave you missing out on a chance to acquire tips on how to produce better posts.

Generally, SERPs with the highest amount of engagement can guide you in coming up with topics that are popular among searchers. Alternatively, paid search campaign data can also offer you in-depth detail on the most suitable keywords and their associated contexts. As a content marketer, never ignore this information lest you end up creating content that results in lower performance.

Avoiding Outbound Links

One of the most common pieces of misinformation in the SEO industry is that a page will lose ranking or trust by redirecting users to external sites using outbound links. This is not the case. Actually, how would searchers or bots find your work credible and authoritative if you do not link to external sources? Ideally, well-researched content ought to include sources by including links of other sites within its body. Besides, Google finds content with enough outbound links more credible and a site’s ranking is improved. Therefore, instead of only focusing on internal links, it is advisable to link strong points to a credible site.

Conclusion

These are some of the common content marketing mistakes that hinder your SEO performance. Set out to fix them and be sure to see significant improvement in your page’s ranking. This will also help lower your marketing costs. In the long run, if these content marketing mistakes are avoided, your SEO performance will significantly improve. Additionally, it is important to audit for these mistakes continuously, since they can constantly change depending on the search trends and algorithms.