I am in the process of deleting a lot of my blog posts at the moment. This isn’t because we have had a fight and aren’t talking anymore. The reason is pretty simple. They just aren’t very good. When I first started blogging 4-5 years ago I did it for all the wrong reasons some of which were.
- If I blog lots Google will like me
- I am hilarious and people will love what I write.
- My pithy words will resonate with hundreds and thousands of people
- If I pump out any old drivel it will help my search rankings
Of course this is not the case. I have known now for several years that the points above are completely wrong. In the past 2-3 years I have read thousands of posts, read countless presentations and bought many ebooks on content marketing and they all spit in the face of above. Their advice on content creation and content marketing can be summarised below. Each of these could be a book in itself (and in many cases is)
- Write well thought structured content that mirrors what your customers are interested in and searches for.
- Write in your own voice and with your own opinion. Avoid buzz words and write simply.
- Get feedback on what you write from customers, friends and others.
- Social Media likes and retweets are good for the ego but not for the business (it doesn’t hurt but it isn’t a huge ranking factor factor). Site visits is what counts. Social is an important part of SEO strategy but get the content right first.
- You are not a huge company so work the simple techniques again and a again using the three mantras, good keyword choice, excellent unique content, well structured sites
- Blog regularly. It can be ten times a day or 2-3 times a week. Don’t hit publish if you don’t think it is good quality
I wrote a post on SEOMOZ titled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff last year which talks to this good content strategy. Have a read it covers content and some ideas in more detail.
I will be deleting more posts over the coming days and weeks and marching to the content beat in the coming months.
Do you agree?
