If you’re using content marketing in your business, you’re in good company. Search Engine Journal offers some eye-popping statistics. TL;DR version: almost three quarters of businesses are using content marketing.
Why? Because it works. A good content strategy delivers the customers you want. Moreover, content’s benefits are cumulative.
Or course, there are pitfalls. We looked at digital sharecropping; it’s a common pitfall.
There are others.
Common hazards in content marketing: quick fixes
There are many challenges; Forbes lists several.
However if you fix the two hazards below, you’ll improve the results of your content marketing quickly:
- Vanishing content: you create excellent content, but it’s quickly buried on your website.
- Too much out-of-date content. This content isn’t relevant to your business today.
Let’s look fixes.
1. Vanishing content: review your website’s navigation
When I’m working with a content marketing client, they often have great content, but that content’s buried, so it isn’t found. You can fix this via navigation and search primarily: start by looking at your products and customers, and think about how customers will find what they’re looking for on your website.
Your aim is to avoid confusing your website visitors. As the saying goes, confused people don’t buy.
Take a lead from Amazon, which does content brilliantly. From Content Marketing, SEO And Websites: 4 Practical Tips To Make Sales:
Every product page on Amazon is designed for customers. Every word and image on each page helps with content marketing and SEO.
That said, although Amazon’s improved over the years; it still has challenges with navigation and search. Everyone does. Be prepared to create fresh content, and change your navigation as needed, especially if you have a large website.
Tip: if you’re creating content, aim to do a website content audit every 90 days. Remember your blog. Although blogging is wonderful, great content is easily buried.
Review and update your blog’s content frequently. Add your most relevant content to a Resources, Tips, or Learning category. Alternatively, create maps of content, and add the maps to your navigation.
2. Review and update your content to ensure its relevancy today
Back in 2019, I removed a couple of websites which had been online for a decade; I deleted them completely. Although both sites had masses of content, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted; much of the content wasn’t relevant to my business goals a decade later.
Although nuking a website isn’t recommended, relevant content is vital to your business goals.
How do you ensure that your content is relevant?
One word: review.
The larger your site, the bigger your challenge in reviewing and updating. When you begin a content marketing strategy for your website, budget time and energy for frequent reviews.
Consider this reality: content ages. You need to maintain it.
Google Search Console is your friend, but don’t rely on it completely. Consider your business goals, and how your content might help you to achieve those goals. Keep your goals top-of-mind whenever you review.
Do you wonder how often to update content?
How often should you update your content?
That depends on what you want to achieve. Try doing a content audit once a year, if possible, and update pages and navigation as needed. Create maps of content if you have a large website
Before you begin your audit, take a moment to outline your goals, as well as upcoming marketing campaigns.
Get value from content: achieve your marketing goals
Review your content marketing today. Make the most of the content you have, by bringing back vanishing content, and planning content updates.
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Copywriter and marketing pro Angela Booth maintains a busy copywriting and ghostwriting practice. Fascinated by online marketing, she wrote one of the first business books for internet marketing, published by Allen & Unwin. She’s been an enthusiastic blogger since the late 1990s.
