It’s Halloween week, so I’m sharing the scary mistakes I see happening in search visibility and content marketing. I did a longer version on Instagram the last two years. This time I trimmed it down to 6 instead of 13; the more important ones. There’s also one bonus mistake I couldn’t leave out. At the end, I give you two ways to pick your next step. Choose the one that fits your mood.
Enjoy the episode!
🧰 I love me a good digital marketing tool. This week’s recommended tool is Blog Page Power-Up Plan™. The Blog Page Power-Up Plan™ shows you the top 3 most impactful areas where a specific page is falling short in search and what needs to be prioritized before investing more time or money into SEO/AI SEO. Normally $27. If you get it in the next 7 days, oh crap, I’m starting to sound like one of those late night knife commercials, anyway, if you get it in the next 7 days, use code OCT10 and you’ll get $10 off.
🎧 This week’s recommended podcast episode is David Duchovny: Malibu Bicycle Cops on Literally! With Rob Lowe. It was just a nice listen. If you like either of those guys, you may enjoy the episode too.
If you listen to the episode, let me know how you like it!
Find other recommended episodes here.
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tbdIn the spirit of Halloween, I have some scary mistakes to share around search visibility and content marketing.
I did a version of this last year and the year before on Instagram, but it was 13, not 6. 13 is too much. So you get 6.
[1] Ignoring keyword research.
While people used to type in 1-5 words to find what they’re looking for, now they’re putting in full sentences. Or in follow up sentences. No matter the tool, the tool has to extract context. And that context is keywords. The words key to finding content that talks about the topic. Ensure you’re using the same words your audience is using.
[2] Neglecting to optimize for local search.
Even if you serve a national or global audience, showing up in local search is a great way to build trust and authority as well as serving those who are near you. This might be optimizing your Google Listing or writing topics to bring in local indicators.
[3] Neglecting to optimize content for AI Search tools.
We’re all strapped for time. If you only have an hour a week to spend dedicated to this, work on page formatting. I just shared about the primary difference between traditionally optimized pages and currently optimized pages a couple of episodes ago. Take a listen and see what things stand out and implement them.
[4] Not optimizing meta information.
These matter especially when they are shared or saved. The SEO meta tag and description is what is shown when sharing to FB or in a text to a business colleague.
[5] Lacking a content distribution strategy.
Make the most out of the time and energy and budget that you put in to creating content. It’s a gazillion times simpler when there’s a strategy in place. Here’s a good analogy… a good content distribution strategy is like putting out your clothes the night before. You can just get dressed without overthinking. With a content strategy, you can publish to all the places without overthinking.
[6] Not incorporating visual elements in pages and blog posts.
I have this thing I offer called the Blog Page Power-Up Plan™. It provides the 3 most impactful actions to take to improve the search visibility of a blog page. A lot of the plans, had walls of text without any graphics. There were a few that were so busy, there’s no way the reader would know what to do next. A general guideline, certainly not a hard rule, is show something visual (like a photo, table, hell even an animated .gif) for every 2-3 standard paragraphs. Use bolding and various brand colors in the copy.
[6.5] Failure to analyze and measure content performance.
I had to add this one because I already had my scary 6 but this is so darned important! It’s challenging to know where to spend or request budget if there isn’t any performance reports. Here’s a great example, if you find that Instagram leads convert higher, you can spend more time, energy and budget there to increase the traffic.
The Takeaway
I’ll give you two. It’s pick your own adventure day.
Option 1… check your numbers, do number 6.5. Look at where your leads have come from the last 90 days. The channel with the least is the area of opportunity.
Option 2… Start with page formatting, because it helps both Google and AI tools. Add a visual every two or three paragraphs, and check your meta description.
About This Show
The Get More Website Traffic Podcast covers the strategies, tools, and tactics that help small business owners get more people to their website and turn that traffic into leads. Host Barb Davids breaks it down in plain language every week, with bonus episodes featuring other business owners sharing their expertise on topics that matter to running a small business. Produced by Compass Digital Strategies.
