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8 Simple SEO Errors Killing Your Content Marketing

July 21, 2021

Search engines help you get new readers, viewers, and listeners for your content, but you are often the reason why SEO Errors prevent your content from ranking high on search results pages.

Search engines want to show your content to the world, but not if you’ve made mistakes that undermine the user experience and search engine guidelines.

So give search engines what they want by avoiding the following common mistakes content creators make.

  1. Short content

Google likes long content because it gives users enough information to meet their needs. In general, the deeper the content, the more likely it is to resolve the user’s intent or question, which is what Google wants.

A SerpIQ study found that the content displayed in Google search results in positions 1 to 3 averaged 2,400 words. In short, long-form content ranks higher on Google.

  1. No images or design elements

Nobody likes outdated sites that look like they were made in 1999; new, modern sites simply perform better. The content is the same: if you have text pages without images or design elements, readers – and therefore Google – won’t give your content any preference over competitors.

  1. Spelling errors/content

Spelling errors and other content errors are technically not SEO factors, but they damage your credibility and your chances of being connected. Getting links is one of the best ways to put content at the top of search results. If you want to know more, Matt Cutts from Google discusses the topic here.

  1. No content break

The reader’s average attention span is very short, apparently less than that of a goldfish. Hence the importance of continually getting the reader’s attention during an article.

To do this, split the text. Using captions, lists, and images to split content keeps readers reading and staying on the page, helping the content get noticed by search engines again.

  1. Using paragraphs with long text

Likewise, using long paragraphs is a good way to get your readers to leave your page immediately. The shorter your paragraphs, the better you can grab, hold, and keep reading your readers’ attention.

  1. No external links

Readers want credible content. If your content is just you “talking” and not referencing other content (to cite sources, for example), why should readers think you are trustworthy or link to you?

Reboot Online experimented to see if external links improve rankings in organic search results and found that they have an impact. The experiment could not determine the magnitude of the impact, but there was an impact nonetheless.

  1. No promotion

Just because you create content and make it better than someone else’s doesn’t mean it will show up first. There’s a reason why SEO takes some time. You should expect people to access your content and provide positive SEO positioning signals such as links and social media shares.

  1. No Meta-Optimization and CTA

Another flaw is using the default content metadata options: titles and descriptions. This may be the last of the SEO Errors I’ve listed, but it’s important; you can and should optimize the content title and description; otherwise, by default Google will take your header and the first two sentences.

Instead, write unique meta titles for your content. For example, in WordPress, it is easy to use the Yoast SEO plugin or others.

Conclusion

If you look at these eight common mistakes and make sure to avoid them, you’ll be much more successful with organic search traffic to your content. And, unsurprisingly, you’ll also create solid content, which will help you drive more traffic through positive word of mouth and a variety of other channels.