When it comes to effective marketing strategies, content marketing is possibly one of the best tools that you have available to you. That is if you do it well. Do it badly, and you could very well be doing more harm than good. Don’t be misled into thinking that content marketing is merely about writing a few simple blog posts and then getting them online. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple. Here are just 4 of the content marketing mistakes that you could very well be making.

Bad quality content

If you have nothing to say then don’t say anything, it is that simple. Take time to think about what you are posting before you publish it to your site because if you are producing bad quality content that nobody wants to read then you will not be helping to get your name out there in a positive way. By delivering poor content that adds no real substance to your site you are just wasting everyone’s time.

Google may do you a favour if your content is bad and not show it to people at all. If however, it does let people see it then you could end up being ridiculed all over the internet – both scenarios will mean you have wasted plenty of valuable time.

Don’t write for search engines

Whilst it can be tempting to write so that search engines can find you and boost your visibility to potential clients you should really concentrate on writing for the people who will read your content instead. Bombarding your content with keywords to help those search engines may well just make it harder to read which will, in turn, make your potential readers lose interest.

Think about your ideal customer and write your content to appeal to them. By all means, use keywords but make sure they work within your content and it is well written and understandable.

Too much focus on selling

The truth is that nobody really wants to read a lengthy sales pitch, so if the focus of an article that you publish it to sell something to the people reading it then you are making a huge mistake.

Of course, ultimately, the object of your content will be to sell products or services to your readers, but you need to be a bit subtler in order to capture them. Make sure that your content contains plenty of information that is valuable to the reader, do this first and then you can hit them with your sales pitch, usually by way of a call to action that you can add to the end of your article.

This way the reader will have absorbed all the important information in your article and will be more likely to feel that your product is exactly what they need.

Don’t forget your call to action

When writing content, your ultimate aim is to steer potential clients towards your products or services. This is done with a call to action. Great content on its own is great and will add real value to your site, but without the call to action, there is a possibility that that potential client may well move on from your site without doing what you wanted them to do.

If you are making some of these common content marketing mistakes, then maybe it is time to ask for help. Why not speak to a digital marketing agency, Manchester and see how they can help you to produce great content for your website.