Is Your Business Making These 5 Common Content Mistakes?

Apr 6

Every business with an online presence needs content. It’s one of the main ways you reach people, and that reach—directly onto readers’ phones and laptops—is as personal as it gets prior to an actual sales call.

But getting content right is hard to do. Many businesses, especially SMBs handling all their content themselves, get tripped up by several mistakes that harm the effectiveness of the content they’re producing.

I’m about to share with you five common content writing mistakes businesses make in their content marketing efforts.

For each, I’ll tell you:

Why it’s a mistake
What the mistake looks like
What to do instead (or how to avoid making the mistake)

Let’s start off with a common mistake that you’ll see everywhere, but that’s especially hard to avoid in tech and software writing.

1. Writing to Experts 🤓 (Using Jargon + Insider Language)

Why it's a mistake: Your customers usually aren’t experts or insiders!

Your ideal customers—the people whose problems you can solve—usually aren't experts in what you do. That’s why they’re coming to you for help with it.

It’s tempting to think that readers will be impressed with your expertise when they see a bunch of technical, jargon-heavy content on your site.

But the truth is, establishing your expertise is only a tiny sliver of why you produce content.

Most of the time, overly technical content and insider language will turn off your nontechnical readers, not impress them.

What this mistake looks like: Imagine I started prattling on about ICPs, SERPs, Flesch-Kincaid scores, content ideation, and so forth.

Do I need to know about this stuff to perform in the content writing and content marketing field? Absolutely. And if you’re a marketing manager, you probably do, too—maybe even at a greater level of detail than I do.

But do you, a busy business owner or leader, want to hear about it? Probably not.

Most likely you’re here precisely because you don’t want to have to worry about that stuff.

What to do instead: Write with authority, but keep it interesting and understandable to the average person who would buy from you (or make purchasing decisions for their business). Simple, relatable language is almost always the right move.

In other words, write content for humans— content that’s designed to meet the needs of your right-fit audience.

2. Using Your Blog Only for Internal News

**Why it's a mistake:** your blog should be pulling in leads and prospects and building your brand awareness, not focused internally.

Another mistake we see is businesses using their external, customer-facing blog for internally-focused updates 📈 and company news 💼— and nothing else.

Why it's a mistake: Because your blog should be pulling in leads and prospects and building your brand awareness. Internal news rarely accomplishes either of these goals.

Even product or service-oriented updates (like “we just announced a new [item you sell]!”) can be built in a way that’s too internally focused, which won’t drive the traffic you want. With the right touch, these types of posts can generate results, but only if you're careful and intentional in how you produce them.

What this mistake looks like: I work with several fine writers. Last Christmas, I bought custom mugs for my writers and sent them a little gift basket. I could’ve written some kind of “happy holidays to my awesome writers!” blog post to show off my merch and how great of a company Content for Humans is. But that wouldn’t have accomplished the right things for this site or pulled in the right readers.

(I think it’s a pretty sweet mug, though)

Here’s another example: a year-end reflection sort of post might make sense for your hobby or nonprofit. But not for your business, if the goal is pulling in prospects and turning them into customers. The same goes for pictures from last year's holiday party, updates on sales figures, or reflections on a recent industry event: these usually don't move the needle with your would-be customers.

What to do instead: Keep the internal stuff internal. Use your blog for meaningful public-facing stuff that attracts right-fit readers and pushes them to your products or services.

3️. Writing What Matters to You 💡... But Not Your Audience 🥱

**Why it’s a mistake:** What’s interesting to you doesn’t always matter to your audience.

Next up is an easy trap to fall into, especially if you’re both the business owner and the primary writer (looking at you, solopreneurs!).

Why it's a mistake: Hmm. Do you want the nice answer or the less-nice answer?

Less nice: You overestimate how interesting you are. 😳

Nicer: you're missing the big-picture goal 🎯: winning hearts and minds of the real people and organizations who need what your business has to offer.

Sometimes the stuff you want to write about will matter a great deal to that right-fit audience. But don't assume that's always the case.

What this mistake looks like: This one can take many forms. Blog posts about your hobbies, or maybe super-niche articles about obscure facets of your products/services.

You care about these things, but does your audience?

Another stealthier version of this mistake that can sneak up on department leaders or subject matter experts 🥷: publishing content that resonates with people in your industry that have roles like yours, but that your customers won’t care about or won’t understand.

For example, writing on how the latest industry trend affects marketing teams is great—if you’re running a site catering to marketing teams. But not if your company is trying to sell boats or software or dentures.

What to do instead: When planning what to write or publish next, keep your audience—and their needs and problems—front and center.

Implementing a long-term content strategy is a good way to avoid this mistake. But even if you're not there yet, make sure your decision-making framework about content centers on your customers and audience—not merely your own interests.

4. Posting Without Considering Keywords 🗝 and SEO 🤖

Why it's a mistake: Because content has to be discoverable.

You could be publishing awesome, helpful content that your right-fit audience wants to read, but it doesn't make a dent unless that audience can find your content. That's where keywords and basic SEO come in.

SEO can get complicated in a hurry, and the more complex side of the discipline is constantly changing. But the basics of on-page SEO aren’t hard to get a handle on.

The same is true with keywords and keyword strategy: at a pro level it can get a little complex, but anyone who can write well can handle the basics.

What this mistake looks like: Let’s talk about the blog post you’re reading right now. I could write all day about content and content mistakes— but if I don’t stop for a moment to think about keywords and SEO best practices, I’d be hurting myself.

You’ll see that this post has clearly defined headings that are properly formatted. That’s an SEO best practice. If you look closely, you’ll find certain keywords that make sense for this post: content mistakes, content writing, SMB— that sort of thing. (I’d list more here, but I don’t want them to come off as spammy.) Hopefully I’ve worked them in so naturally that they don’t even look like keywords. But I’ve definitely stopped to think through “what might somebody search for that this search result would solve or satisfy?”

What to do instead: At a minimum, every time you post, think about the ways your content will help readers. Then ask yourself (or your favorite SEO tool or specialist) what terms and phrases your “hasn’t-found-you-yet” reader will likely search for if they have that question.

Use these terms naturally in your content (don't stuff things in that don't fit; this isn't 2009), and you're well on your way. Many of them will occur naturally anyway—but it’s easy to miss opportunities here if you don’t pause on this step.

Three other quick SEO writing tips:

make your published content easily scannable (shorter paragraphs)
use H2s and H3s to break up the content
make those subheads interesting to readers yet descriptive of the content under them

5. Selling Yourself 📢 📢 📢

**Why it’s a mistake:** People want their problems solved more than they want to hear about you.

Next up is a tricky one, and one that small businesses and solopreneurs can struggle with: selling yourself too hard.

Content writing efforts are a sales and marketing tool, but this usually isn’t the place to sell yourself. And it’s definitely not the place for a hard sell.

Why it’s a mistake: Because outside your closest contacts, people aren't that interested in you.

Sorry, but it's true: most of us (including me 🙋🏻‍♂️) aren't the most interesting person in the room. Trying to be (at least without first doing the work of building trust) isn't a winning solution.

Think about why you're investing in content in the first place. Content isn't primarily a place to sell yourself. It's a way to reach audiences by giving them what they need.

Your content marketing efforts should focus more on solving your readers’ problems and answering their relevant questions. If you’re too focused on what you or your business can do, you run the risk of driving your audience away.

What this mistake looks like: If your content is more about you, your abilities, or what you can do than it is about what your readers want to know, you’ve likely veered off into “selling yourself” territory. You (/your products or services) are a character in the story you’re telling—but not the main character.

What to do instead: Content that wins is content that connects and empathizes with your customers' needs—and then solves them.

Once you've done that? The selling gets a lot easier.

So focus on solving customer problems (or answering customer questions) first. Provide real value first; sell second.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s 100% OK to set up your product or service as the solution to your reader’s problem. Just make sure you deliver value first.

Getting Content Right Isn’t Easy. We Can Help.

Getting content right can be a painstaking, frustrating process. If you’re doing the writing for your business (or you lead the people who do), keep these five common mistakes in mind. Avoiding them will help you sharpen your message and improve your results.

Still, knowing the mistakes to avoid in your content writing is one thing. Consistently and artfully avoiding them is another.

Could your organization use an assist on content? Offloading this responsibility to a business that focuses solely on content could be an excellent choice.

If you’re ready for help with your content writing or copywriting needs, Content for Humans can help. Reach out today to discuss how we can improve your content output and the results it generates!

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Joey Hoelscher