5 Signs that you need to hone your content creation.
For the past few years, everyone's been buzzing about the important role that high-quality content plays in search engine optimisation. It's easy to get caught up in that hype and to focus the entirety of your efforts on the latter half of the content creation process. In my experience, it's actually a pretty common mistake.
And it's one that can have a seriously adverse effect on your website traffic.
For a start, if you're targeting the wrong keywords, then it matters very little how well-written your content is. There's going to be an audience disconnect. It's not going to achieve your objectives - at least not as well as purpose-built content. Let’s look at this...
1. You Don't Really Understand Your Audience
I'd like you to answer a few questions for me.
- Who are your ideal customers, and what demographics do they fit into?
- What are the typical interests, habits, and behaviors of people in said demographics?
- What sort of people are most active on your competitors' social media pages and websites?
- What search terms are most frequently associated with your business, products, and brand?
- Which keywords and phrases seem to bring in the most traffic?
Until you can answer these questions in their entirety, I'd posit that you don't understand your audience well enough to write for them. You need to make a consistent, concerted effort to learn more about your audience and their unique needs with each passing day. The more you understand, the better.
2. You're Seeing A High Bounce Rate
Take a look at your website's analytics. Is there a ton of people arriving on your site, spending very little time there, and then leaving without visiting more than one page? If so there may be something wrong with your site performance.
You'll want to test it on a wide variety of devices and in a wide selection of different browsers to ensure that everything loads properly and no one's being driven away by bad design or performance issues.
Assuming you've ruled that out, it's likely that this is happening because there's something wrong with your content. Either it's too low-quality, or you're targeting the wrong keywords.
3. You're Getting Impressions, But Not Clicks
Are you ranking well but still not getting any traffic? here's a good chance that your title tag and meta description aren't properly written and optimized.
- Under 60 characters.
- Formatted as Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name.
- Targets one to two keywords at maximum.
- Unique for every page.
- Leverages your brand identity.
- Written with your audience in mind.
Moz also has a set of guidelines for writing a good meta description:
- Generally between 155 and 160 characters.
- Written to be compelling, provides a clear idea of what can be found on a particular page.
- Unique for each page.
- Doesn't use quotation marks.
4. People Aren't Doing What You Need Them To
If you're getting plenty of traffic and impressions but no conversions, that's a sure sign there's something wrong with your sales funnel.
While this may be a content issue, it's equally possible that it might be caused by a lack of calls to action. It’s easy to forget that you usually need to tell people what you want them to do next!
5. You're Getting No Impressions At All
If your site isn't present on Google's Search Engine Results Page, the likeliest culprit is a keyword mismatch. You may be targeting search terms that are too niche and don't receive any search traffic.
Alternatively, you may be targeting terms that receive too much traffic, and are far too competitive for you to effectively rank. To figure out which issue you're running into, I'd recommend a tool like the Moz Keyword Explorer or Google Keyword Planner. Try to find search terms with medium traffic and low to medium difficulty.
In Closing
All successful content marketing starts with keyword research. With knowing the right keywords to target and how they tie into topic selection. Armed first with this understanding and knowledge of your audience, you can go on to take the necessary steps to create content that's not only of the highest quality but also effective.
About the Author:
Daniel Page is the Director of Business Development for ASEOHosting, a leading provider in SEO hosting and multiple IP hosting.