8 No-Nos of Content Creation

Video Podcast Transcription:

Hello, Tyler DeWitt, here. So, I’m going to go over the eight no-nos of content creation.  

1. The content is too long, keep it straight, simple, and to the point. Just because your content is 1500 words, and somebody else’s content on the same topic is 750 words does not necessarily mean your content is better. More is not always better.  

Just like when you go to the gym. A lot of people get the wrong idea about going to the gym, and I’m just using this as an analogy. People will see these big bodybuilders, and they think they go to the gym seven days a week. That’s not always true. More is not always better. In fact, I train out here in Los Angeles, California and Venice Beach, where some of the top athletes in the world train. Some of the top athletes in the gym get in and out within 45 minutes to an hour, and they go the gym four days a week. Your content should be the same way. Your content should be simple and straightforward, more is not always better. So, keep that in mind.  

2. Too many images. We have clients that contact us still today, and they’ll put 50 images on their page, yet they’re optimizing for Google. Google is looking for font, text, links, so include more text on your pages. You don’t need a lot. 

Instagram is an image machine. It’s an image sharing social network. Use Instagram if you’re going to be carried away with images. Not too many people go to Google Images like they would using in the search itself. People go to Google, open it up, and they do a search. Images are not bad. You want to include them of course, but don’t get overly carried away, putting 50 images on there with two or three words under the image, especially if you’re doing storytelling. People would like to read what you have to say too.  

3. Keyword stuffing. We see people all the time, still today, contacting us saying, “Include my keyword. I want to optimize those keywords.” It’s like whoa, wait a minute, 50 keywords, or that same keyword repeated over 50 times in a 500-word article doesn’t make sense. You don’t need this keyword stuff. That’s what they used to call it in the old days. It’s not year 2000, and besides that, people will doubt your expertise. You don’t need to stuff keywords. Google is smarter than that. They’ll know how to rank your content, and they’ll see the keywords in there.  

4. Not focusing on the user. A lot of people will write thinking of what they like when you should be focusing on answering the user’s question. A good way of doing this is to use Ahrefs or SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner. Find out what people are asking your industry. Understand your customer, understand their needs, understand their questions, and start answering those questions in your content.  

6. Bad grammar. Not everybody has A-plus grammar. I see some of the best executives in the world that can’t even write that well. I have talked to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies that send me emails with grammar errors all the time, believe it or not. And I’m not saying it’s okay because it’s not, so be sure to proofread of your content.  

I have even hired professional writers in the past that make mistakes in their writing. I open it up, and I just notice, and it’s like whoa, wait a minute, fix that. So, do the best that you can with your grammar. People are not going to hold it against you if they see an error here and there on your blog, but on your homepage, your product pages, your service pages, all that, make sure that’s A-plus. You don’t want to have any grammar errors there. Now on your blog, you don’t want to have any grammar errors there, but what I’m saying is people will place less attention on your blog versus what they would a product page or service page, if that makes any sense. 

 7. Not getting to the point in your content. Some people go on and on and on. I even see speakers doing this at speaking engagements. A lot of them will go on and on. I’m thinking what’s going on here? What are we talking about? Are we going to get to the point? I want to hear the key takeaways; I want to know what’s going to work. I want to know how to 10x my marketing operations to take it to the next level.  

I’m not looking to walk out of here and be average, right? I was thinking I was the only person thinking that at times, come to find out, the whole entire audience is thinking that. Being a good speaker, a good writer, is not about how much you produce. It’s more about focusing on the key elements. If you can do it more efficiently in less time, then you’ve got it made. That’s what you need to do. No need to take up more of people’s time than what’s necessary. You want to get the point across.  

8. Salesy content. Salesy content is by far the worst type of content you can have out there nowadays. Unless it’s a PPC Ad, maybe it will make sense. If it makes sense to make it salesy, go for it, but if it’s on the blog and your point is to educate then sell to build engagement to nurture that audience. Don’t get so salesy in the content.  

Don’t write something up where you’re trying to sell something. Sometimes people just want to learn about a product before they buy it. They’ll be looking for something and they’re like, “Well, I don’t know,” but if you communicate the value in why they need it, without trying to sell it right away, you’ll find out your conversions will do a lot better. Your engagement will be a lot higher.  

So just to go over these eight key factors again, one, too much content, two, too many images, three, keyword stuffing, four, not focusing on the user with boring content, six, bad grammar, seven, not getting to the point, eight, content that’s too salesy. So, keep those eight key factors in mind when you’re building content, and watch your digital marketing improve tremendously. Thank you.