Google’s done it again. On October 25, 2019, Google BERT hit the scene. Boy, it has been a rollercoaster.
Within the first few days of its release, many people saw sizable fluctuations in their keyword performance, page ranks, and site traffic. Others saw almost no change at all. Still others questioned whether Google BERT was actually that big of a deal.
Yet, this rather innocent-sounding update is described by Google as “one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of Search.” It’s expected to affect one in 10 organic searches (yikes!).
Google releases almost nine algorithm updates each day. So, what makes BERT so important? And what do marketers (and site owners) need to do to prepare or recover from the effects of this update on their site?
Those are great questions! Let’s explore.
Google BERT Explained, Plus 5 Ways to Make the Most of Google’s Latest Search Innovations
What Is Google BERT and Why Is Everyone Freaking Out?
Why You Saw Site Traffic and Keyword Fluctuations
How to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready for Google BERT in 5 Steps
1. Optimize for Humans, not BERT
2. Keep Calm and Continue E-A-T-ing!
3. Revisit How Your Site Captures Informational Searches
4. Avoid the Keyword Superstitions That Are Currently Everywhere
5. Get Ready with Those Featured Snippets
[bctt tweet=”Saw something weird happened in your current site rankings? Maybe it’s the latest Google BERT doing its job. @JuliaEMcCoy explains what happened and some easy tips to keep your site afloat. ♀️” username=”ExpWriters”]
What Is Google BERT and Why Was Everyone Freaking Out?
There’s been a lot already written on what BERT is and what it is not, but it’s worth revisiting exactly how Google BERT works.
BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. This mouthful of neurolinguistic terminology basically means that it’s now easier for the search engine to understand the context of words in a search string.
Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), BERT helps the search engine understand the significance of words like “to” or “for” (transformer words) in the context of a search. These would have been previously ignored by the search engine, leading to frustrating goose chases while someone tried to find the right combination of words or phrases.
For example, before BERT, Google results for “math practice books for adults” would have included hits that – while technically keyword matches – were irrelevant:
By emphasizing transformer words, the search engine can now understand that “for” is an important part of the sentence grammatically. Previously, it would have ignored the word, returning results involving math books for any demographic with adult in the term – such as young adults.
Google BERT doesn’t change any rules for keywords and the update didn’t change any of the metrics the search engine uses for determining page rank. Nonetheless, it’s still going to have a pretty big impact on site traffic and page ranks.
In fact, it already has.
[bctt tweet=”What is Google BERT? BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. To simplify: BERT helps the search engine understand the significance of transformer words like ‘to’ and ‘for’ in the keywords used. ” username=”ExpWriters”]
So, You Saw Something Spooky With Your Site Traffic? Here’s What Happened.
Within 24 hours of Google BERT going live in English, people started reporting chaos in their analytics as the changes took place. Some people reported significant drops in their site traffic and page ranks, while others witnessed surges to the top.
Nutrition and supplement review site Examine, for example, saw a return to normal traffic from the July update:
Other sites saw a significant drop in their traffic and page ranking, with some claiming they’d been de-ranked or had pages de-indexed altogether. Given the way BERT affects searches, a few reasons exist as to why this might have happened:
You were getting a lot of traffic from keywords, but your information was irrelevant. For example, if you had a site selling young adult math textbooks, you would have previously gotten traffic from “math practice books for adults” because your keywords matched. That’s not happening anymore.
You’ve been pushed down by a competitor with a stronger keyword game. This is proving to be especially true for local SEO, where searches rely more heavily on transformer words like “at” or “in.”
You don’t have a lot of content that would turn up in informational searches. Informational searches – the type of Google query where a user is seeking specific information about something – are the most common type of Google search out there. They’re also what BERT primarily affected because they’re the types of searches most likely to use transformer words or include conversational wording.
Your site is optimized for search engines, not people. Google has been pushing content quality for years now, but some sites have stubbornly clung to SEO oriented to the search engine rather than human readers. If you’re using outdated SEO techniques, you might have seen a plunge in traffic.
If anything, BERT reveals just how important it is to stay up to date with Google’s major algorithm updates. Google can – and does – merrily overhaul the way search engines rank pages. (Remember Panda and its 2015 update? I sure do. Sheesh.)
With the release of Google BERT, we’re going to see another one of those overhauls, albeit a less traumatic one. Those who have been lagging behind the times with their SEO strategy are the ones feeling the most negative effects.
Fortunately, I know a few tricks to help correct any downturn you might have experienced and get the most from the release of BERT.
[bctt tweet=”After the Google BERT update, there were significant drops in site traffic and page ranks. But don’t worry. If you have a content strategy in place, you’re more likely to be unaffected. You might even see better results! ” username=”ExpWriters”]
How to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready for Google BERT in 5 Steps
Wondering how to optimize your SEO for Google BERT? Don’t. Google has already told us it can’t be done.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do in the light of BERT to boost your SEO game. These include:
1. Optimize for Humans, Not BERT
Great content is all about focusing on your human reader. With the release of BERT, Google is driving that home.
BERT empowers the search engine to understand searches conducted using “natural language” (i.e., they’re conversational sounding) rather than “keyword-ese” – the use of strings which don’t resemble human speech but are designed to get Google to spit out the info what you want.
If you’re writing for humans, you’re already covered here. If you’re still keyword stuffing like it’s 2009, it’s now time to make sure your content makes sense to people, not machines.
2. Keep Calm and Continue E-A-T-ing!
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness – three elements of Google’s quality metrics for determining page rank.
Most of Google’s biggest algorithm updates have centered around addressing the SEO gaming which occurred in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It’s no longer possible to churn out hundreds or thousands of poorly written but perfectly SEO-optimized articles (thank heavens). Google will simply push them down, if not de-list the site altogether.
The rules of the SEO game haven’t changed with BERT. Now, it’s simply more likely that the helpful, quality content you’ve produced already will be even more effective in the search engine because the algorithm uses NLP.
So, keep calm and keep focusing on what you EAT.
3. Revisit How Your Site Captures Informational Searches
One of the biggest negative effects seen with BERT is a drop in organic search traffic. This suggests that your pages were ranking in searches that weren’t applicable to your niche.
BERT is designed to return more relevant searches to its users. What you need to do now is:
Identify what keywords or pages have stopped performing as well.
Search those keywords and see what sort of other content appears alongside (or instead of) yours. You may find it has changed.
Tweak your content to match the content that ranks or add more content which reflects these changes.
It may be worth it to connect with a content strategist to discover the best options for content adjustment.
4. Avoid the Keyword Superstitions Currently Everywhere
Almost as soon as BERT was announced, SEO gurus sprang into action to dispense advice on how BERT is changing the landscape of SEO. Some of the advice included:
Keyword density will become less important.
Stop words are now vital.
Long-tail keywords will become more important than short-tail keywords.
BERT makes the “conversational level” of content a quality metric.
Don’t listen to anyone who claims to have the “ultimate BERT SEO optimization strategy.” BERT doesn’t change any rules around SEO.
Do I sound like a broken record yet?
5. Get Ready for Those Featured Snippets
One neat thing about BERT is that it will make Featured Snippets much more valuable. Rolled out way back in 2014, they provide a way to quickly browse a site’s content. Now, even if you’re not the top-ranked page in results, there’s a chance you might get featured in the coveted “position zero” if nobody above you is optimized. The same is true if you’re more relevant than other results based on the use of transformer words.
You can’t create your own featured snippets, but you can do a few things to increase the likelihood that your site will appear as one (and thus at the top of the page):
Organize your content in lists. Google can create an outline.
Sum up your answer to a question in 40 to 50 words. Google will create a paragraph.
Use tables to display data.
Make more video content.
[bctt tweet=”There’s nothing much to fix after the Google BERT update. ⚙️ Just be sure to create for humans, continue E-A-T-ing, revisit your content strategy, avoid keyword superstitions, and consider optimizing content for featured snippets. ️” username=”ExpWriters”]
SEO in 2020: Writing for People, Not Search Engines
Although Google BERT caused quite a splash, it’s not the game-changing event that we’ve come to expect when Google claims something is the “biggest update in years.”
Google BERT is just the latest search innovation put into place to make Google more useful for everybody. By being able to understand contextual words such as “for” or “to,” we can now all get our fingers on information faster and easier.
I’ve been practicing content marketing for nearly nine years now — and I’m not the only one. There are thousands of us content marketers out there. Not to mention, the industry itself is worth over $400 billion!
But, time and time again, I still hear the question asked: “So what exactly IS content marketing?”
This video was created to answer that question. My goal is that this big, burning question is thoroughly answered in a way that inspires you to get started on your content marketing journey!
What is Content Marketing? (Video)
[bctt tweet=”What is content marketing? If you’re still confused about what it is and how it could be your business’s winning formula , watch @JuliaEMcCoy’s latest video on Youtube featuring @JoePulizzi and @cmicontent. ✨” username=”ExpWriters”]
To get a solid, accurate definition of content marketing, let’s turn to industry leaders that have been an influential part of this industry today.
So, let’s start there. Then, we’ll head into a down-to-earth discussion of what this type of marketing really is!
Unless you’re living under a content marketing rock, you’ve probably heard of Content Marketing Institute. The founder of CMI, Joe Pulizzi, is known as the “Godfather of Content Marketing.”
The literal ‘godfather’ of content marketing himself. Credits to my amazing video producer, Renata Franco.
Back in 2011, Joe started Content Marketing World, a world-leading content marketing event today with over 4,000 content marketers in attendance. When Joe had the idea to start the event, he reserved a room that fit 125 people in the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel. Over 600 people showed up. It grew and grew every year from there.
A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.
Let’s look at a few other sources. Wikipedia used over 34 sources for their definition of content marketing:
Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used by businesses in order to:
Content marketing is the process of creating valuable, relevant content to attract, acquire, and engage your audience. Buyers and customers today are inundated by more marketing messages than ever before — more than 2,900 per day, by current estimations. This creates an environment of attention scarcity, challenging marketers with the task of producing engaging content that won’t get lost in the static. A well-crafted content marketing strategy places your business in the position of a thought leader.
When content marketing works BEST, it usually has two core elements:
When the main purpose of content marketing is to grow and build an engaged, happy audience
When the creator/creators (brand, publication, entrepreneur, marketer) are ready for a long-term commitment
Some say the first example of content marketing goes way back to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard Almanack, first published in 1732, which Franklin published in order to get people hooked on his printing service.
In the 19th century, John Deere started a magazine called the Furrow with the goal of providing accurate, unbiased information for farmers to improve their operation, according to a Content Marketing Institute documentary.
If you study the best examples of brands grown through content today, even the Content Marketing Institute, this was their goal — build an audience before selling anything. Typically, content was created for 12 to 18, 24 months before an offer was ever made to that audience.
So, if this is ever backwards — the offer and sale come ahead of the audience — content marketing simply put, doesn’t work.
To win at content marketing, the type of content you publish should be the BEST in your industry. Think in terms of mastering what you do.
This means being the best in…
Best in author voice (expert writer, researcher, creator – outsource this to make life easy)
Best in topics and concepts (thought leader – avoid outsourcing this part)
Best in optimization and visibility (to be found on Google, research the right keywords and topics before creating)
Focusing on mastering on one channel is better than jumping to all the shiny objects. Study the benchmarks you’re up against, and create better content! More comprehensive, more long-form, more unique.
[bctt tweet=”Focusing on mastering on one channel is better than jumping to all the shiny objects. Study the benchmarks you’re up against, and create better content to win. ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Any company, big or small, from tech to manufacturing, can produce content marketing.
How Does Content Marketing Differ from Traditional Advertising?
Content marketing’s goal is to build an audience, and then, turn that audience into buyers. (Without that, there is not a ton of profit and ROI.)
Why it’s different than ads: content marketing that works puts the buyer in the driver’s seat. It completely obliterates the annoying, pushy “look-at-me, look-at-me” attitude of traditional advertising. Instead, content is used to build a relationship.
The costs of content-marketing can be low, as compared to ads. You can publish on your own site, your own blog — unlike traditional advertising, where companies pay a third party, like Facebook, to include an ad.
Some successfully use content marketing in tandem with paid ads. So, that can be done to great success.
What Does a Content Marketing Plan Include?
Usually, these are the six content types included in a content marketing plan:
Web pages (onsite: Home, About, etc.)
Blogs (onsite: consistent fresh content)
Social media (consistent fresh content on social profiles)
Email copy (build your list, send out new content)
News/ad/sales copy (sales pages, ad campaigns, PRs)
Creative (video scripts, etc. as needed for different campaigns)
The best content to publish consistently is blog content (weekly), emails (weekly), and your social media content (daily).
Don’t Go Crazy in Doing All of That Content — Manage and Delegate It
This can get overwhelming, fast. You have to have a method to the madness.
The key is managing. Instead of “doing” all the content, think in terms of “managing” all the content. Delegate to the right partners, the right expert writers and creators.
It’s easy to worry, “Do I have to do all the things?” In short, the answer is yes, you DO have to do a lot, but if you think about managing rather than doing you won’t be burnt out all the time and risk content marketing failure. Also, think of your complete content marketing as an ecosystem.
That’s about it for today’s video! If you have any questions on content marketing that I didn’t address in today’s video, tell me in the comments.
Hit that Subscribe button for my new videos every other Monday!
2020 is coming at us, whether we like it or not.
To stay ahead of the curve as knowledgeable marketers and website owners, what are the most important factors you need to know about content and SEO trends?
As it turns out, a LOT. ?
As fast as technology changes, content marketing changes, too. What was relevant, best practice, or trendy last year may not hold water in 2020.
Read my blog today on what I consider next year’s major SEO and content trends headed our way. ? Don’t let your content and SEO fall behind.
5 SEO and Content Trends That Will Be Worth Your Time & Focus in 2020
1. Amazing, Niche, Expert Content Which Meets or Exceeds Google’s E-A-T Standards
2. Content Optimized for Voice Search
3. More Long-Tail Keyword Searches and More Content Targeting Them
4. Richer, SEO-Ready Imagery in Content
5. Interactive Content
[bctt tweet=”As content marketing continues to evolve, we find ways to keep our content relevant and ranking. ? So for 2020, why not go further and create better, unbeatable content? ? @JuliaEMcCoy reveals 5 upcoming SEO and content trends.” username=”ExpWriters”]
[bctt tweet=”5 SEO content trends for 2020: ? 1. Niche Expert Content 2. Content Optimized for Voice Search 3. More Long-Tail Keyword Searches 4. Richer Imagery See all 5 from @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
1. Amazing, Niche, Expert Content Which Meets or Exceeds Google’s E-A-T Standards
Content continues to amaze and astound us on the regular. It can do SO much for small and large brands alike.
It taps into the major traffic potential stemming from Google search (70.6% of ALL web traffic originates there, according to Backlinko/Sparktoro).
Publishing strategic content generates 67% more leads than NOT publishing strategic content, says a HubSpot study.
Meanwhile, 71% of B2B buyers read blog content during their buying journeys (3-5 blogs is the norm).
If you’re on the receiving end of those stats, ready and waiting with amazing content, the rewards are huge. More people are getting wise to how well it works, and so we’ll see more content from more brands in 2020.
The word to focus on, however, is “amazing.” Without that qualifier, you don’t have a chance.
In 2020, it’s not just bad content that won’t cut it. Even mediocre pieces will fail to land, including “not bad” and “good enough” content that makes you shrug halfheartedly after reading the first paragraph.
To rank with Google and readers, your content has to go far beyond “not bad” and inch into “exceptional,” “amazing,” and “wow” territory.
The only caveat? The bar for amazing content keeps rising. Marketers who have been doing content forever know this beyond a doubt, so they’ll up their game in response.
The result: Content in 2020 will be better than ever – especially from major players!
How can you keep up to rank in 2020? The shortlist:
Hit Google’s definition of quality. Over and over, in their Webmaster Guidelines, the search engine references helping the user, being useful, and including the words for which users are searching in your content.
Prove you’re an expert in your industry/topic area. Google highlights the importance of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) in its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Google itself called these guidelines a good indicator of how they define high-quality (and low-quality) content. That hint is from an article published in August 2019 on the Webmaster Central Blog.
Create & publish amazing-quality content consistently. Inconsistency in content is a recipe for catastrophe. Failing to update your content regularly (whether that means tweaking older articles or pages or posting new ones), as well as failing to maintain your quality standards, will ultimately hurt your search visibility.
At Express Writers, we consistently rank at the top of Google because of our commitment to consistency and quality in content.
Case in point: For 8 years (yes, years), without missing a beat, we published one blog/week. We stuck to this rigorously, and it has paid off. Today we rank for over 23,000 keywords in Google, and 99% of our prospects come to us through organic search.
Summing up, content isn’t going out of style. (Never.) Plenty of great content is going to come out of heightened knowledge and a better understanding of what it takes to rank in 2020.
Need help learning how to write SEO content that meets the tried-and-true fundamentals of ranking in Google and earning your reader’s attention? Grab my free SEO cheat sheet below. ⬇️
[bctt tweet=”If you’ve been following Google’s E-A-T standards, good work focusing on useful content for online readers. If you’re not sure you’re updated with the latest guidelines, check out @JuliaEMcCoy’s quick 3-item checklist. ?” username=”ExpWriters”]
2. Content Optimized for Voice Search
Is anyone surprised this is a 2020 trend? Me neither.
Voice search is continuing to grow, both in usage and popularity. According to the Smart Audio Report from NPR and Edison Research, 16% of Americans owned a smart speaker as of January 2018.
One year later, that number shot up by 78%.
Naturally, with more people owning and using smart speakers, it follows that more will be using voice search to ask their devices to find information.
The data backs this up: eMarketer predicts by 2021, over one-third – 36.6% – of the entire U.S. population will use voice assistants.
What this means for SEO and content is pretty big.
Content optimized for voice search must be (and will be) on the agenda for most content marketers.
What does this look like? Short answer:
A bigger focus on long-tail, question-and-answer, and phrase keywords with natural language (that means weird, unnatural-sounding keywords are out)
Careful formatting of these keywords within the content (bullets, short paragraphs, bolded text, and other signifiers that tell Google, “Hey, this is important”)
More marketers optimizing their content for SERP features like Featured Snippets and People Also Ask – because voice search pulls from these spots! (Specifically, SEMrush found that 70% of answers returned from voice search came from SERP features, and 80% came from the top three results.)
[bctt tweet=”In 2018, there are 118.5 million smart speakers in US households — a good reason to start optimizing your content for voice search. How do you do this? @JuliaEMcCoy has a few key tips for you. ? ” username=”ExpWriters”]
3. More Long-Tail Keyword Searches and More Content Targeting Them
So, more long-tail keyword searches are coming from voice search in 2020. Along with that, we’ll also see more people generally using long-tails in an attempt to cut through the noise and get closer to specific results in Google.
If you target long-tail keywords in your content and nail the user intent behind them, you’ll appeal to people looking for better, more relevant search results.
That will be big in the year ahead – those who focus on the long-tail will bring in more conversion-ready prospects and will pull ahead of marketers still putting all their eggs in the broad, “head” term keyword basket.
4. Richer, SEO-Ready Imagery in Content
Gone are the days when you could slap a semi-relevant stock photo in the header of your blog post and call it done.
In 2020, relevance and usefulness will be key – not putting images in content just to have them, but putting images in content to deepen meaning and facilitate understanding of the content’s topic.
That means the relevance of the images to the textual content will matter greatly as well as the engagement factor. (If you took away the images, would your readers be more, less, or equally engaged with the content?)
Useless stock photos of random people typing on computers aren’t good enough anymore. Content in 2020 will call for richer imagery that adds to a piece’s usefulness and interest for readers.
In addition, this imagery will be SEO-ready, meaning:
Smart marketers will make use of alt tags to describe their images with relevant keywords.
They’ll name their files logically, including focus keywords.
They’ll choose the best file format for the type of image (i.e. JPEG for large photos, PNG for images with transparent backgrounds, etc.)
They’ll reduce their images’ file sizes for faster loading.
5. Interactive Content
A focus on better images in content brings me to interactive content – specifically, interactive imagery and infographics.
According to a 2017 study from Ion Interactive and Content Marketing Institute, 87% of marketers either “strongly agree” or “agree” that interactive content grabs readers’ attention better than static content.
Plus, interactive infographics were the top type of interactive content that year, with contests and calculators following close behind.
For example, look at this infographic from Goldman Sachs. Parts of it are animated, and as you move down the image, you get various opportunities to click on buttons and text to reveal deeper data about Millennials.
In 2020, more marketers will be getting creative and innovative with imagery like this. Additionally, they’ll be looking for fresh ways to engage audiences with short attention spans without resorting to video content, which involves a slightly higher investment in time, equipment, and money.
A key question for next year: How do we engage readers better in our text-based, written content? Interactive content represents just one solution.
[bctt tweet=”?SEO and content trends to follow in 2020: niche and expert content that meets Google’s E-A-T standards, voice search optimization, more long-tail keywords, more SEO-ready images, and interactive content. ?” username=”ExpWriters”]
[bctt tweet=”5 SEO content trends for 2020: ? 1. Niche Expert Content 2. Content Optimized for Voice Search 3. More Long-Tail Keyword Searches 4. Richer Imagery See all 5 from @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Content & SEO Trends in 2020 Are All About the User
Did you notice another trend within the trends we discussed? (#inception)
Every single one of them focuses on our users and readers.
We might as well go ahead and dub 2020 “the year of the user” – that’s how much they matter now and in the future of content marketing.
If you want to grow online with content, you have to forget about your brand in that equation. Instead, you have to focus on how users can benefit from your expertise. Give away your knowledge, treat it like the renewable resource it is, and, in the process, give your readers the value they crave.
The side effects of that approach, as all of us in content marketing know deeply, are incredible for growing a business.
So, with 2020 in our sights, if you haven’t yet, it’s time to pull up a chair to the table and grab a slice of that content pie. It’s best served warm, so get it while it’s hot.
The easily avoidable content mistakes happening all. The. TIME.
It’s almost 2020 – a year people used to dream about when they thought of a high-tech future – but here we are.
People are still committing basic content marketing mistakes (sometimes unknowingly, but ♀️).
These scary mistakes aren’t something to laugh about, either. They cost you a lot. Think Google rankings, traffic, leads, conversions, a loyal audience, and general content ROI.
If you want your content to perform well (who doesn’t??), if you want to keep your website from becoming an abandoned, haunted house where no one dares step foot…
You must know and avoid these mistakes as if they were monsters prowling the dark of night. Don’t get too comfortable, don’t get close, and if you spot one, RUN, and try to fix it.
10 Content Marketing Mistakes That Are Undermining Your ROI
1. Prioritizing the Quick Sale Over Building Long-Term Trust
2. Not Investing in Valuable, Useful Content
3. Buying Fake Followers (Follower Ghosts!) to Grow Your Online Presence
4. Targeting Focus Keywords and Related Keywords Incorrectly
5. Posting Content Whenever the Mood Strikes
6. Publishing Skeletal Content and Expecting It to Rank
7. Putting Out Lots of Scary-Quality Content
8. Letting Duplicate Content Haunt Your Domain
9. Participating in Ghoulish Link-Buying Schemes
10. Forgetting to Champion Your Reader
Don’t Let Bad Content Marketing Tactics Haunt Your Brand Presence
[bctt tweet=”There’s no need to have a sixth sense for us to see dead content. Low-quality copy and unethical marketing practices should get that straight to the grave. ⚰️ Save your content now by avoiding these 10 bad content marketing tactics!” username=”ExpWriters”]
Run the Other Way! 10 Scary Content Marketing Tactics Undermining Your ROI
If you commit any of these, call a priest – you need an exorcism to save your content marketing soul.
1. Prioritizing the Quick Sale Over Building Long-Term Trust
Repeat after me: Content marketing is not about the quick sale.
In fact, it’s not really about the sale at all.
Now, hear me out. Yes, the eventual end-goal is to build up enough trust with your readers so they feel confident buying into whatever you’re offering.
BUT.
More revenue is just one possible end by-product. It’s not the point.
The point is trust.
When you look at a solid definition of content marketing (like this one I constantly reference from the Content Marketing Institute), note there is no mention of sales, money, or revenue.
Instead, the emphasis is placed squarely on your audience/customers. Specifically, content marketing is about:
Attracting and retaining your audience
Driving profitable actions from customers
“Profitable actions” aren’t necessarily sales. Instead, a profitable action could be adding a new subscriber to your email list, or earning another loyal blog follower.
These are profitable situations because they signify interest and growing trust in what you offer. These people may eventually become not only customers but also brand advocates. That compounding future interest helps spread your brand name as an authority, builds relationships with people, and, ultimately, leads to more conversions.
Trust breeds trust. Once the relationship is there, the sales will come later — but they’re not the point.
Don’t settle for pushiness and try to close your leads today. That’s not content marketing. Instead, focus on building that long-term trust that wins real industry positioning tomorrow.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t be a real-life undead chasing humans to get them to buy your product or service with your salesy content! ♀️ Start building long-term trust instead with attractive, relevant, and useful content. – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
2. Not Investing in Valuable, Useful Content
Content that wins trust and builds loyalty is high-value, useful, and relevant to your particular audience. If your content is none of those things, you won’t reap the rewards of content marketing.
After reading a brand’s educational content, people were 131% more likely to purchase from them
78% rated a brand as “helpful” and 64% rated them “trustworthy” immediately after reading the brand’s content
One week later, the above numbers increased by 8-9%
Useful, valuable content has a direct effect on your readers. Without those traits, however, your content will be useless.
If you want the rewards, you have to invest in creating and publishing the best content you can produce. No ifs, ands, or buts.
3. Buying Fake Followers (Follower Ghosts!) to Grow your Online Presence
Have you ever been tempted — when you’re green with envy over your competitor’s follower count — to just buy some fake followers and call it a day?
(And, just to be clear, I’m talking about non-real followers, i.e., computer-generated follower ghosts that don’t exist in real life. )
Don’t do it.
Not only is buying fake followers majorly frowned-upon, but it will also have consequences that will undermine what you’re trying to do (build an engaged audience).
HootSuite did an actual case study on buying fake followers on Instagram to see what would happen, and the results were laughable:
1,000 followers, each of them obviously bot-created at random, with zero engagement from any of them.
If you have a large follower count but no engagement… well, that’s an oxymoron AND a red flag. Instagram will easily find your fake account and shut it down, according to their Terms of Use.
Likewise, other brands won’t want to associate with your account. Getting their content or products in front of a ghost audience will do absolutely nothing for them. And don’t think you can hide it – there are tools for analyzing accounts (like IG Audit and Fake Follower Check) and estimating the percentage of the audience that’s real.
Not worth it.
[bctt tweet=”Ghost followers surely make your total follower count look good, but buying these non-existent accounts will just drag you to social media hell — flagged and shut down. – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
4. Targeting Focus Keywords and Related Keywords Incorrectly
We’re no longer living in 2007, but people are still using keywords like we are. Unfortunately, misusing keywords is a great way to make Google ignore or down-vote your pages.
Culprit #1: Thinking you need to use your focus keyword verbatim.
Google has previously defined “close variants” for keywords. Essentially, this means keywords with slight rewording but the same meaning will pull up the same results.
Example: The SERPs for the keywords “vanilla ice cream” and “ice cream vanilla” have identical results displayed in different orders. (Both recipe lists include Taste of Home, Epicurious, David Lebovitz, Taste and Tell, Like Mother Like Daughter, and Allrecipes.)
Vanilla ice cream:
Ice cream vanilla:
If you rank for one, you’ll rank for the other, so there’s no need to rigidly stick to verbatim keywords, especially when rewording them slightly makes your sentences flow better.
Culprit #2: Targeting related keywords separately from your focus keyword.
Are you only targeting one keyword per page? Then you’re missing out on the power of semantic search.
Including related keywords in your content helps both users and search engines determine whether it’s contextually relevant to the topic the user is searching for.
For example, if you’re writing about how to brew black tea, you wouldn’t just target “how to brew black tea.” You’d also make sure to include related keywords like “how long to steep black tea,” “how to make black tea bags,” and “boiling black tea.”
Leaving out related keywords ignores semantic search, which is a no-no. The internet is becoming smarter, and semantic search is the future.
[bctt tweet=”Is this common problem haunting your posts? Not using focus keywords synonymously with related keywords. Save your content before it’s too late! Here’s how.” username=”ExpWriters”]
5. Posting Content Whenever the Mood Strikes
Do you tend to post content like Dracula preys on his victims – whenever the mood strikes?
This is counterintuitive to content marketing’s core mission, which is building audience trust. (Inconsistency is actually a hallmark of untrustworthiness.)
The more consistently you publish great content, the more your audience will rely on you as a trusted source of information. You’re proving yourself over and over.
On top of that, HubSpot found businesses publishing content consistently received more traffic and more leads than businesses publishing content inconsistently.
Spotty posting schedules and spotty quality are two factors to nix if you expect to make your content marketing work.
[bctt tweet=”Do you tend to post content like Dracula preys – whenever the mood strikes? Inconsistency is a hallmark of untrustworthiness. The more consistently you publish content, the more your audience will rely on you. More: ” username=”ExpWriters”]
6. Publishing Skeletal Content and Expecting It to Rank
Skeletal, thin content is usually unsatisfying, light on research, and light on expertise. It doesn’t answer the reader’s most burning questions about the topic, and it doesn’t serve a useful purpose.
Granted, there’s a place for shorter content pieces (sharing opinions or news, for example), but not if you want to rank for keywords tied to heavy-hitting topics with lots of facets and depth.
Let’s look at an example SERP to show you what I mean.
For the keyword “SEO content writing,” the top 3 results have an average word count of 1,515. The lowest is 880, the highest 1,967.
To rank for this keyword, you would need to create a content piece of at least 1,500 words, because you’re looking to be a better information source than anything that’s currently ranking.
You can’t write 1,500 words full of fluff, either. You need meaty content that explains exactly what SEO content writing is and how to do it, plus provide examples.
In most cases, skeletal content just won’t cut it.
7. Putting Out Lots of Scary-Quality Content
Okay, you say. You’ll commit to consistency. You promptly write 5 blog posts in one day so you can get them out once a day for a week.
No. No, no, no.
Props to you if you can write 5 high-level, exceptionally researched, thought-provoking, engaging content pieces in one day. You’re either inhuman or a savant.
For the rest of us, this is impossible.
Pushing out content just to push it out never results in greatness. Instead, you’ll just have a lot of messy, yucky content sitting on your website, dragging down your game.
Don’t stoop to letting scary-quality content slide. Commit to excellence, and strive for it with each content piece you publish. This is the only way to build up a solid reputation, become an authority, and give your readers the value they’re looking for.
It’s the only way to rank!
8. Letting Duplicate Content Haunt Your Domain
The most common SEO error marketers make is duplicate content, according to SEMrush analysis.
66% of over 100,000 articles suffered from this problem.
Duplicate content is just what it sounds like: Multiple pages on your site that are identical or closely match each other. These are a problem because search engines won’t know which page is the most relevant, which can impact search visibility.
Image: Moz
To avoid this problem, all of your content pages and copy need to be unique.
[bctt tweet=”Duplicate content cannibals in your content island are just eating each other’s rankings and confuse Google. ☠️ Before getting that new post published, make sure it’s unique from focus keyword to copy. – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
9. Participating in Ghoulish Link-Buying Schemes
Here’s what I like to call a “content marketing downward spiral.”
You publish lots of poor content because you want to get it out there, fast. Because your content is poor, you don’t earn any backlinks. Because you don’t earn any backlinks organically, you buy into a link scheme to fake your way to ranking. Google blacklists you.
Do you see how shady content practices feed on each other?
Instead of buying links, focus on making every piece of content your best. Make your content worthy of links, and the links will come naturally, over time.
Remember, it won’t happen overnight. Content marketing, if anything, is a study in patience.
10. Forgetting to Champion Your Reader
You can tell when a brand has forgotten their reader when:
They focus on themselves in the content and what they’ll get out of it.
Their content has little value for the answer-hungry.
Their content is riddled with errors and inconsistencies.
They’re more focused on pitching than helping.
Their content engagement is the equivalent of crickets chirping.
Their content topics seem random and irrelevant.
Their posting schedule is summed up in one word: “Surprise!”
The thing is, when you put your reader first, all of these content problems naturally solve themselves.
Champion your reader, and your content marketing should fall into place.
Don’t Let Bad Content Marketing Tactics Haunt Your Brand Presence
None of these tactics will help you win readers and rake in ROI. There’s a better way to strategize, create, publish, and promote content.
Prioritize your audience, invest in the best content you possibly can, commit to consistency, and stay far away from strategies only the Wicked Witch of the West would buy into.
Bring your content marketing into the light, and the monsters sucking the life from your success won’t stick around for long.
Picture this – summer is here, and your calendar is full of pool parties, barbecues, picnics, and whatnots.
You’ve been waiting for this moment for what seems like ages. ☀
There’s only one small problem.
You want to look great in your bikini, but it’s been cold out there for the past few months, so maybe you’ve stayed in and eaten one, two, or twenty more pizzas than you should’ve (no judgment, we’ve all been there!).
At this point in the game, you don’t have a lot of options. You can go on an aggressive diet, use a body wrap or two, or skip a few meals. There are a lot of ways to get fast results, but the thing is, you shouldn’t be focusing on quick fixes.
What you want is a sustainable approach that can get you the best results possible, and the same goes for blogging.
For a long time, my approach to blogging was all about putting out as much content as possible. That’s not necessarily a bad idea since there’s a correlation between high publishing rates and increases in traffic.
The problem is, quick-fire content isn’t a sustainable strategy, much like any diet that promises dramatic results in a matter of days.
If you want to grow your traffic and maintain it, you need powerful, evergreen content that’s going to keep your website in the best shape of its life for years and years to come.
4 Types of Evergreen Blog Content
1. List-based articles
2. How-tos and tutorials
3. Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
4. History-based posts
That’s a quick cheat sheet if you need help coming up with evergreen blog post ideas. If you stick to those types of content, you’re on the right path. However, you may need a little help coming up with ideas, so keep reading!
[bctt tweet=”If you just fire out short trending posts that will be irrelevant tomorrow, you’ll have a hard time getting results. Better grow your traffic with evergreen blog posts. @JuliaEMcCoy shares what you should start posting now. ” username=”ExpWriters”]
2 Types of Blog Content: Evergreen Posts vs. Trending Topics
We can break down most of the content you’ll run across in blogs into two categories:
Posts that have to do with current trends
Evergreen content
Both types of blog posts have the potential to bring a lot of traffic to your website. However, content that focuses on trending topics has an expiration date.
The best way to put that into perspective is to take a look at Google’s most popular searches for the past years.
Here are some of the shiny things that caught our collective attention in 2017:
Source: Google
Now compare that to 2018 and you’ll see there’s little overlap:
Source: Google
The trends themselves change, but certain topics never go out of style. For example, those two breakdowns tell us that as a society, we care a little bit too much about sports and celebrities.
Spotting those types of big-picture trends is important because it enables you to come up with blog post ideas that tap into more lasting concerns.
I’m talking about the type of content that your readers care about now, and they’ll still care about in five years.
Chances are if you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve already written some evergreen posts without even noticing it. The best way to spot them is to take a look at your website’s analytics.
Usually, there’s a spike of interest around new content. It brings in some traffic, and then that flow of traffic turns into a trickle.
Evergreen blog posts, on the other hand, tend to bring in a steady amount of traffic over time.
Source: Google Analytics
Blogging about current trends may give you a great ROI in the short term. However, evergreen content is the equivalent of that healthy lifestyle that will see you get to the pool party with the same six-pack you’ve been sporting all year.
Keep in mind, though – just because you follow a healthy diet, doesn’t mean there isn’t room for burgers and pizza somewhere in there and the same goes for blogging.
It’s very difficult to build an entire blog around evergreen content only because it tends to require a ton of work.
Ideally, you’ll have a healthy mix of blog posts that target current trends and evergreen articles. That way, you’ll maximize your traffic growth, and you’ll be able to maintain it ✔️
4 Types of Content That Make for Great Evergreen Blog Posts
As a rule of thumb, evergreen content is in-depth, and it has built-in longevity. Let’s break down the five types of blog content that fit those criteria.
1. List-Based Articles
The web is obsessed with list-based articles. If you do a random Google search right now, I’m willing to bet that most of the articles that come up are based on lists.
The logic here is simple. List-based articles enable you to judge an article’s worth at a glance. Know what’s better than learning 5 ways to tie your shoelaces?
Learning a cool 15. Can’t argue with that logic.
When it comes to evergreen content, you want lists that aren’t tied to specific products or events since those can change over time. Instead, go back to the basics and focus on everlasting advice. Articles like “6 Super Simple Tips for Writing Clear Sentences” will never go out of style.
2. How-Tos and Tutorials
The internet is amazing for a lot of reasons. Not only is it the best source for cat-based humor, but you can find guides on how to do anything.
Let’s say, for example, you want to learn how to change a tire. It doesn’t matter if no one ever taught you – you can look it up online, read a quick tutorial, and you’re in business.
Notice how lists are also incredibly popular when it comes to tutorials. If you can find a topic that you can break down into steps, you have a winning formula for an evergreen blog post.
3. Frequently Asked Questions
If you run a popular website, chances are there are a lot of questions you get all the time. You’re not alone, and that’s why FAQs are a thing.
We know all about that, which is why we have a shiny FAQ page.
Not only do FAQs save you a ton of time, but they also serve double duty as evergreen content. A FAQ can be both a page on your website or a lengthy blogpost that answers key questions about your industry.
The more questions you answer, the more valuable your FAQ becomes. That means more opportunities to use keywords, more traffic, and since it’s all broken down in clear sections, it’s easy for visitors to find what they want.
4. History-Based Posts
When you think about it, history is the ultimate example of evergreen content.
History is fact – it never changes, it only gets updated as we go along.
Now, here’s the deal, I don’t know what your blog is about. By some estimates, there are over 500 million blogs, and I’m only one person, I can keep up with maybe 1 million of them before things get confusing.
However, most blogs have one thing in common – they stick to a narrow set of topics or a niche.
Every niche or industry has its history. If you blog about running shoes, for example, you can write about their history, from the moment a guy first had the idea to attach spikes to the bottom of shoes for cross-country running back in the late 1800s (yes, of course, I had to Google that).
Whatever your deal is, there’s a history there, and it’s evergreen. If you can write about it and keep it up-to-day, you have winning blog content on your hands.
[bctt tweet=”What evergreen blog posts should you start posting now? Try list-based articles, how-tos and tutorials, FAQs, and history-based posts. Understand what these content types are in this post. ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Evergreen Blogs Are Healthy Blogs
Growing your blog’s traffic is easy, in theory.
You write blog posts that people want to read about and boom, you get traffic. The thing is, the only way to maintain that traffic is to keep publishing content at a fast pace.
Option B – you write evergreen posts that keep bringing traffic long after you’ve published them (or you hire an expert writer to do it for you!).
If you need help coming up with and writing evergreen blog posts, check out our content shop.
