I really like the article “10 Old SEO Methods You Need to Stop“ by Greg Habermann. If these old SEO methods are part of your content marketing strategy — STOP them right now!
Some oldies are goodies, but not all SEO methods are. As I mentioned in a recent blog post Google makes changes to their search algorithm more than once per day! Thus, these old SEO methods are more than likely going to hurt you than help you. With both Google and Bing focusing more and more on quality content that is authoritative, sharable, and actually user friendly, these 10 old methods are great reminders of what was wrong with the old way (yes, only 1 year ago in some cases).
I want to focus on number 4, “Creating Thin Content”. It basically says, are you answering any important questions for your readers? Is your content current and are you publishing enough fresh content? If not, you are not doing content marketing effectively.
Here is number 4…
4. Creating Thin Content
This bad SEO technique just doesn’t want to die. I get it, old habits die hard. But friends, it’s time to move on.
We already know that great content can drive great links. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when looking at your content creation:
- Are you outsourcing your content writing? If so, who is doing your writing? Is it the person most qualified to build out superb, link worthy content?
- Who are you writing for and why? Are you writing for search engines or are you writing to build an audience? These shouldn’t be mutually exclusive things, by the way.
- Do you feel like you’re writing the same thing over and over and over again and you’re so tired of it because there are only so many ways you can write about whatever it is that you sell? You’re likely doing it wrong. Sorry, but it’s the truth. Writing can indeed be tedious but think of the question above. If you can’t stand what your writing, what are the chances that others are going to think it’s great? Will they think it’s great enough to link to?
Define “thin.”
Christopher,
Good question actually. Before the Google updates of the last year+ it seems that many bloggers were posting blogs with the keywords they desired, but very little content of value. In other words, content that a searcher would like to read and potentially share that answers a question, solves problem a searcher may be having, or adds a thoughtful or informed opinion. Obviously a lot of these are a matter of opinion themselves. But, I would say the practice of farming out content, more common in the past, to article houses with no expertise in the area often produced thin content. So “thin” content is content just to have keywords on your site that provides no obvious value to the target audience – which is the essence of content marketing.
Greg
@Greg Bardwell – I couldn’t agree more. The term ‘thin’ implies content with little reader / viewer value.
It does indeed!