Whether you’re B2B or B2C we are all aware that creating content for blogs, website, social media, and downloadable content is important. But if it were easy we’d all be churning out content like there’s no tomorrow… and that’s not the case, is it? That’s why it’s important to take it back a step and think about some of the hurdles that are holding us back and how we can overcome these challenges.
We’ve all heard how content is king and you’re probably pretty bored of hearing it, but it really is a vital part of your marketing strategy. Here are some key content creation hurdles and how to overcome them.
1. Not Mixing It Up
Once a writer has found their comfort zone it can be easy for them to continue writing in the same way, and eventually produce content that doesn’t feel fresh or unique.
Sticking with what you have done before (with the same structure and topics because you think that if it worked before then it will work again) is not the right approach and main reason why there is so much repeat content out there. This strategy might work for a while but is doomed to fail eventually.
How to Overcome:
Start by creating a list of blog titles that are relevant for your industry and your audience, if you are stuck for ideas think about what your site needs to be ranking for, and blogs to answers the queries that your potential customers may have. Once you have an initial list, you can use tools such as Google Trends or the HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator to expand this list by finding related topics.
Be unique and different – try new methods/ styles before your competitors do. Read and share content by industry leaders, to give insight and spark ideas for future blog posts for your own company. Frequently reading high-quality content will support your own content generation.
2. Balancing Creativity and SEO
When writing blogs or website content for your site it’s always valuable to keep in mind search engine optimisation (SEO). However, when faced with creativity over SEO it can be difficult to get the right balance. SEO is crucial for people to be able to find your site, but a blog that’s just written for the sake of SEO is not one that people are going to want to read or be interested in.
How to Overcome:
The key here is to choose your blog topic and a focus keyword (based on your SEO) and use the keyword where appropriate, but always write with your readers in mind! This means that the content must be well written and inform the reader of an area of interest to them. Keyword stuffing is not an effective route to go down.
Syndicated content is another solution to overcome this challenge. Producing syndicated content on other authority sites provides you with a backlink that will increase your sites SEO authority. This will also in turn, drive more traffic to your website and raise awareness of your brand to visitors of the authority site. Just make sure that these sites are relevant to your industry to ensure that your providing readers with useful content.
3. Time is Money
We are in fact against time itself when it comes down to writing content, we all wish we could produce great quality blogs in less time, but it doesn’t work like that.
Whether you outsource or write your own content, time is money, and writing good content is not quick nor easy. Companies often find that there isn’t enough budget to spend time on blogging in replace of activities that are considered to be more beneficial to the company.
Insufficient resources are amongst one of the many problems content makers face, especially in agencies when you’re constantly balancing client deliverability’s and fitting in time for your own content writing.
How to Overcome:
Delegation is a good method for splitting up the workload and achieving more content without too heavily impacting one employee’s workload. Of course, every workplace structure will be different, but this should be trialled to help overcome time challenges. When there’s a team of employees with different expertise, it allows better quality content to be delivered, by delegating content topics to people with specific knowledge.
4. Rising Above with Competition
Companies are now being faced with an increasing amount of competition when writing about the same topics that have already been mentioned in the industry; especially if your company is working within a small niche. Which brings the question, how do you produce unique content that stands out?
How to Overcome:
Make sure for every piece of content you post, it’s the best it possibly can be. Do this by taking the time to properly choose an interesting topic that will resonate with your audience. You should research your topic first, understand that good content isn’t going to be lightning fast to produce, and most importantly get your content proofed to ensure it hits the mark and that there are no grammar mistakes. There is nothing that will damage your brands reputation more than mistakes in their content, and it happens all too frequently.
5. A New Generation of Sponsored Content
There’s been a big shift towards the pay-to-play marketing and organisations paying for their content to get in the search results. Which, to be frank, is getting in the way of unpaid content being noticed in the organic search results. Don’t fear as organic still lives on, but as the big social media players such as Facebook and LinkedIn gain more intelligence and segmentation options, maybe it’s about time we consider opting for a part organic and part paid content strategy.
How to Overcome it:
As I mentioned, keep going with the organic but I’m encouraging you to give paid a go. For best results, define a suitable budget and set specific demographics for targeting your content at the right people, get goals (gain web traffic, more followers on social) and see if it is worth it. Try a few different approaches and see how it goes!
I hope this blog has helped you find solutions for some challenges content marketers face and inspired you to keep writing as your business grows.