As an SEO Specialist, my main focus has always been on content. From the beginning of my journey in this field, I have aimed to provide high-quality content to the audience. When you boil it down, this is what people truly want—excellent content that brings real value; something they can read and feel that the 5 or 10 minutes they spent on it was worth it.
I’m not the first to mention this. Even when I started in the industry a decade ago, I was freelancing for agencies that prioritized content creation and distribution in their strategies. Sure, the goal of that content was often to gain as many backlinks as possible, regardless of their quality or relevance, but the basic idea of recognizing the value of content has always been acknowledged by many in the digital space.
As paramount to the success of a SEO strategy as content is, however, saying “we need to be producing X number of blog posts” per week is one thing – actually implementing it is a completely different kettle of fish, and a strategy can so often fail as a result.
Whilst there are numerous reasons why a content marketing strategy can fail, there are three I come across time and time again (and which I know all too well from personal experiences).
1. Not everyone you’re asking to write can write
It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realised not everyone could write. Or, more accurately, write content in a way that was going to be suitable to be published to a wide audience, representing a brand.
I’ve always enjoyed writing, and just assumed that as everyone can write an e-mail, they can write a blog post, too. Sure, it may take some more time than others, but time is a separate issue – everyone can at least put together 400 words on their chosen topic, right?
Well, the answer is no.
In a previous role, I developed a content strategy that involved various members of staff. I’d edit and finalise each piece of content that was to be published, but people from sales, design, development and project management would all provide a blog post of some type.
At least, in theory they would.
After a week or two, we started to miss deadlines and the blog was becoming a place content was published sporadically, not the resource of abundant digital marketing content I’d envisaged.
The main reason this was the case was I’d asked for certain people to provide content without first determining whether they were actually capable of producing it. This didn’t have anything to do with dyslexia or being completely snowed under with work, but because they couldn’t determine suitable topics. They couldn’t work out how to start the piece, or what the audience would want to be reading about.
This was a big eye-opener for me, primarily as I realised that although people may be able to articulate their thoughts in an e-mail, this doesn’t mean they’ll be able to put 400 words together on a given topic.
Key Takeaway: Before you assign content production requirements to people, have a chat with them first. Ask if they’ve produced content in the past and whether they’d be happy to do so moving forward. Some people may simply need a gentle nudge to persuade them, but others might not have the ability to provide the complete blog post expected.
2. You made the wrong assumptions when developing your strategy
In some ways, this point contradicts what I said in point one, but bear with me!
When I started my current role, I worked alongside our Brand & Communications Manager to develop a content strategy, covering content that was to be published on both internal and external channels.
The strategy explained what topics would be published and when, and gave responsibilities to certain people within the different business areas.
Due to my previous experiences (as discussed above), I was careful not to rely on people too much and aimed to create topics I could feed into (or at least have a good idea of what was being talked about when proofing and editing).
Couple this with past personal experiences of developers generally not feeling confident enough to be involved in a regular posting strategy, I assumed it would be the same here. As such, the topics remained quite linear, focusing either on SEO or company news, which wasn’t really ideal when the content was to be representing a full service digital organisation.
At the same time as creating the content marketing strategy, I was also completing an analysis of all backlinks to the company website, and one thing soon became apparent – our developers were already producing content regularly, often on their own blogs, as well as within established and well-respected industry blogs and forums.
Instantly opening up the scope for topics within the strategy, our developers are becoming integral within the production of high quality, regular content. Sure, the content developers produce is unlikely to bring in direct leads, but it undoubtedly raises the profile and awareness of the company brand (and looking at the traditional SEO aspects, also give us those all important relevant and quality backlinks).
A prime example is this post published in July 2013. The fifth most read piece of content on the website, it accounts for approximately 5% of all links pointing to the website – and that’s from content that was published on the company blog and no where else (by us), gaining its popularity purely due to the fact it offers genuinely helpful advice.
Key Takeaway: Your strongest or most valuable writers may not be within your digital or marketing teams. Staff members such as developers have a wealth of knowledge to share, which will very likely be picked up and linked to numerous times within the industry.
3. You’re not setting aside enough time
All organisations are battling against time constraints. I get that completely. 100%. As a result, something usually has to give somewhere. The problem, however, is that because the production of content is not often seen as a key priority, it’s one of the first things to be affected.
Whilst this itself is a problem, one of the key reasons content marketing strategies don’t achieve their expected goals in the first place is it isn’t often truly understood or appreciated how much time it takes to create a piece of content.
Let’s use a blog post as an example. If I need to write on the topic of SEO, I can usually produce the first draft of a decent-length piece (1,000 words or so) within an hour. Give me another hour to proof and edit and within two hours we can have a new piece of audience-relevant, quality content ready to be distributed.
Around the same time I realised not everyone could write, I also realised that this two hour timeframe wasn’t necessarily the norm and couldn’t be achieved by everyone. I’ve been producing content for years and I think this has helped, both in terms of being able to think as I go, as well as increasing my typing speed considerably.
Although I do like to consider two hours a good amount of time to set aside to produce a general blog post (keep in mind we’re not talking about more in-depth / analysis pieces of content here – as mentioned in this post, it’s not unusual for this type of content to take between 5 and 10 hours), I’ve come to realise that it’s simply not realistic for many, especially if you’re looking for quality – which is exactly what you should be doing.
Asking someone to set aside a full day to produce content is a realistic idea and this isn’t where the problem lies. Issues start to occur when you stipulate three or four blog posts need to be produced during that time. You put unnecessary pressure on the individual, which in turn results in mistakes within the content, be that in terms of a poor focus or a plethora of grammatical errors.
When I’m asking people for content, I either ask for a certain number of posts by a realistic time, or I ask to see what can be produced when a morning’s worth of writing time is set aside, for example. If this is three blog posts, fantastic. If it’s only one, that’s fantastic, too – as long as they’re of a high standard, this is what’s most important. Remember, quantity always has to come second to quality.
(I know we often like to compare our habits to others, so if you’re looking for an idea about how long it takes others to create posts, there are some good discussions here and here).
Key Takeaway: Don’t set strict time limits or expectations for people producing content. The quality of the content you distribute is far more important than the quantity.
I don’t have to reiterate the fact content is vital to the success of your SEO strategy (or the success of your entire digital marketing strategy, actually). As you’re reading this post already, you’ll know it’s the case. What you may not know, however, is why your content marketing strategy isn’t producing the results you need and expect.
The reality is, there could be a variety of reasons – but if you’re making the three mentioned here, I’d be confident in saying that once they’re resolved, you’ll see a considerable improvement with all of your content marketing efforts.