In 2005, Technorati estimated 7.8 million weblogs. Fast forward a few years and there’s allegedly more than 170 million blogs
Sounds crazy?
Not yet.
What is crazy is how bloggers are spending hours and hours dealing with writer’s block and racking their brains on what to write next, without spending hours and hours promoting themselves and their business.
As a full-time writer, I know how crazy it is to create content and hit the publish button while managing my offline responsibilities.
Before you drive yourself nuts, here are seven mistakes to avoid before writing a single piece of content and hitting the publish button:
- Publishing daily: As a writer, nothing excites me more than dishing out content but publishing daily on my blog is a stretch because I actually have a life off the internet J, and unless you have a ton of traffic and thousands of subscribers sharing your post, you should scratch that out of your content strategy.
Tip: I recommend publishing one post per week, twice in a month if you are writing long–form insanely useful content or if you want to create a content asset and rank quickly on Google, publish long-form content once or twice per week
- Publishing the wrong length of content: one of the ranking factors in Google’s algorithm is long-form content. However, content creators make the mistake of trying to conform to every Google update in a bid to rank for the search engines. While I am not saying that you shouldn’t get your share of the Google traffic juice, it pays to look at your overall content marketing strategy, audience, and niche before sticking with a particular length of content.
Tip: If you are outsourcing content, definitely publish long form content because you rank quickly. If you are creating content yourself, long form content can put a strain on you so you can do one long-form content twice per month
- Publishing a single type of content: no matter what you hear on the internet, blogging, as with all other things does get boring. And there is no faster way to boredom than not experimenting with your content. Try publishing an all image post or use personal stories in your post and stop sounding like a darn computer. Data is good but you are not Einstein.
Tip: Your content should provide value, but avoid boring at all cost
- Publishing without a specific goal: before you hit publish on a post, think, what do I want to achieve with this post? Do I want to be perceived as a thought leader, boost my brand, or generate leads?
My goal is to take content creation off my clients shoulder so they can focus on working on their business – and my clients have been giving me great feedback.
Tip: what’s your content goal?
- Publishing without a plan for promotion: you must have read the 80/20 rule of content, which is spend 20% creating content and 80% of your time promoting that same piece of ontent.
The great thing is your plan for promotion is directly related to the specific goal you have for that content.
Tip: Write a post that is easy for others to promote and then strategically position that post to get people on your mailing list or whatever your goal is.
- Publishing without Purpose: If you read Enstine’s blog, you know it’s focused and filled with purpose. Writing with purpose does take time but it’s totally doable. Nail that and content creation becomes a tad bit easier.
- D-I-Y Publishing: Unless you are a full-time writer, you don’t necessarily have to create content for your blog. Outsourcing content can save you time and energy while you focus on running the other aspect of your business. Fact is, it can help you build your blog faster because you will be super-focused on promoting your blog and business.
Tip: If you are going this route, set a standard for your content including keywords, style, length and other things that we have addressed in this post.
That said, if you’d like to build your blog from scratch, transfer to a new domain, write your site or get bundled content packs around your keywords, visit the Blog and Content Suite Sale to take advantage of the heavy savings and use the code “EMUKI27” at checkout to get 20% off in the already discounted content and web packages.
What are your biggest challenges with content creation? What are the questions that come to mind before hitting the publish button? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.