Good Content But Still Not Ranking? See Where You Might Be Falling Short

The introduction of Google Panda and Penguin are making a lot of people step back and take a look at their website content. Ranking is now more complicated than ever, especially when you are failing to rank even with great, unique content on your site. Not only do we have to worry about this, we now need to make sure we are gaining Penguin-proof links also. Even if you have pages on your website with linkable content, there are many ways that content can be falling short. Here are some of the most common pit falls and how to fix them:

This is so easy to accidentally do, you might have tried to avoid it, but perhaps it still happened.  This will mean that your content, which could be great, still fails to bring in links. In this case, you need to revisit your website content. Perhaps your content is perfect, but there are other elements holding you back such as promotions, a live help option or pop ups. Remember your content should be as helpful as possible to a customer without falling into the category of sales, as this will only hinder your chances at ranking.

How to solve this:

Make it simple, if content can be linkable, keep it as clean as possible to avoid the problems that come with overly commercial websites.  It’s okay to keep your business name and information, but in a professional manner so if content gets shared, the key message is about your business.  Don’t get too used to always using your keywords, sometimes content can looked stuffed when we do this.  Broader content that assists more people can gain a larger response than always writing about the same information that could be similar to your competitors.

When you peel your content back, is it too much about what your business interests are and not enough about other relevant issues?  Good content involves both sides of the party, if you are always talking about yourself, nobody will want to talk about you.  If your content is like this, then your competitors who are more customer-focused might be more likely to get new custom and you might get left behind.

How to solve this:

Don’t always talk about one side of the issue, no matter what area of business you are in; there are always competitors and other options for customers. Don’t be afraid to discuss them so your customers know you are aware of the other options and still feel yours is best. When you write about these areas, back them up with statistics and information from reliable sources.  Quotations, contributions and opinions from experts and links to relevant sites will assist you with this.

Your content might be great, but that isn’t going to get you very far if nobody ever sees it. Your link count can be low for a number of reasons, such as:

·         You’re too passive, there is no point in waiting for people to find and share your content, be proactive!

·         You have only distributed information and links on networks where all of your likes and followers were purchased in bulk, so not everyone is seeing it.

·         You do not use all available resources to contact your customers, such as individual contacts, newsletters or emails, these will go to the people who have already shown interest in your business and are the most likely to pass the information and links on, so why not use them?

Know your audience and you social media sites! Places intended for pins may not be the best place to post an article etc.  Play to what people want, this means your chances of success are much greater!

How to solve this:

Build an audience that consists of people who are interested in your product and want to talk about it and share information.  Put content in front of these people, anyone else may be a waste of time.  These are the people who are going to share valuable links for you.

Being successful at this is about knowing what content people are most responsive to on which platforms and what information your targeted group are most interested in. Without proper research from day one, you can’t bank on success.  Reaching the greatest amount of interested parties with the most effective content is the number one goal, without that, it will be harder to build up a social media following.

If you content isn’t performing as you would have hoped, there are still things you can do to fix it.  Revisit your content and make sure you are not making some of these mistakes!

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