Imagine diverting sizeable traffic to your page only to have people make the run for it because the content isn’t compelling enough.
As a copywriter, it can hurt you emotionally and financially to see your sales figures decrease because of preventable mistakes.
In this roundup, you’ll know about the five crucial content writing mistakes to avoid so you can create a strategy that works.
1. You’re Focusing on Too Many Niches at Once
Most people apply the ‘go big or go home approach to content marketing and targeting a broad group of people. This strategy is extremely ineffective because it simply doesn’t work. Hence, it is one of the most common content writing mistakes people make.
If you try to cater to everyone, you’ll reach no one.
Zero in on one niche and find out everything there is to know about its potential user base.
To this end, it helps to create the buyer persona of your ideal audience. The buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer based on research and data. They make it easier to focus your time on strategies that work instead of casting a wide net.
2. You Only Discuss Features and Not Benefits
The most powerful tool for any content writing service is to understand the difference between benefits and features.
Here’s the long and short of it.
A feature is something that is built right into your product to solve a problem. When writing a sales copy, the features act as matter-of-fact statements that describe what your product or service is. They don’t necessarily convince your readers to convert.
On the other hand, benefits provide convincing arguments that nudge your potential customers in the right direction. When writing a sales copy, benefits describe what the user will experience after using your product or service and answers the question, “what’s in it for me?”
Let’s give you a practical demonstration of features vs. benefits.
Feature: Comes with batteries included
Benefit: Ready to use out of the box so you won’t have to run to the nearest hardware store!
Don’t have time to write a sales copy? You can hire professional content writing teams to do all the heavy lifting for you.
3. Your Content is Not Mobile Friendly
According to surveys, mobile devices are responsible for over 70% of web traffic. To give you some perspective, mobile devices generated only 20% of internet traffic in 2010.
Studies also show that bounce rates are much higher on smartphones than desktop devices, which essentially means that people visit a website and then hit the back button right away. They do this because most businesses are still refusing to keep up with the trends and optimizing their websites for mobile devices.
If you’re using Google Search Console and your website fails to load up for mobile devices correctly, it will send you notifications to fix the situation ASAP. So heed the warnings as soon as you can!
4. You’re Using Too Much Jargon
The goal of a copy is to sell.
To do this, you must tap into emotions in your copy and use words that carry more power. And you can’t do that by using big words and confusing jargon.
Studies show that the average person reads at a 7th or 8th-grade level. So if your blog is too confusing for a teenager to understand and read, your content is too complex and probably won’t result in higher sales.
This makes sense when you think about it. The human brain likes easy things and leans towards ‘cognitive fluency.’ Also, no one has the time to look up dictionaries in the middle of a reading session because that’s too much work.
While using big and fancy words might make you feel smart, it’s probably turning your audience away. Even if there is an inherently difficult topic, your goal as a content writer is to explain it in simpler terms.
Content writing aims to hook readers and carefully guide them through the blog until they are ready to take the desired call to action. And as soon as you use a big word or unnecessary fluff, you break that connection with your reader, after which they’ll lose interest.
And just like that, you lose your momentum with your reader, who will probably forget they ever visited your blog. So take heed!
5. Keyword Stuffing
Google and other search engines are beginning to use more complex algorithms to reward websites that use natural language.
Search for Google’s NLP API, and you’ll know what we’re talking about.
To avoid getting axed by the algorithm for keyword stuffing, you should write in a way that makes sense to humans. So less focus on keyword stuffing and more emphasis on natural language.
How can you tell if your copy is natural?
Simple, read it out aloud. Vocalizing each sentence makes it easier for your brain to spot words and phrases designed for spiders instead of humans.
Remember, search engines worldwide are doubling down on natural language (because it improves the user experience), so should you.
About Dave
Dave Brown leads a team of content writers at Content Development Pros. He has produced sales copies for businesses from various industries, including law, finance, medicine, and interested in Dave’s content writing tips? Visit the official website at CDP to get in touch today!
