Online marketers and writers know that more content equals more site pages, which equals more traffic and, hopefully, more revenues.
But the focus on volume above all else tends to make writers and marketers lazy.
Here are just five of the things lazy writers and marketers do.
1. Remixing what’s already out there
The fastest way to create a page of content is to remix what already exists. Make a quick visit to Wikipedia and half a dozen leading sites and blogs on your topic. Cut and paste some good bits into a Word file. Fiddle with the order a bit. Remix a bit. And you’re done.
The trouble is, your new page of content lacks any originality, is devoid of voice and personality, will rarely be read from top to bottom, and will never be shared through social media.
You can do better.
2. Writing more and more of the same kind of content
Once writers get into the swing of writing new content regularly, it becomes a production line. Each page is between 350 and 450 words. Each is written in the form of a short article. Each it broken up with three or four subheads. The tone is the same throughout. The pace is the same throughout.
If you find yourself becoming bored with the writing you do, you can be sure of one thing. Your readers will grow bored too.
You need to mix it up a bit.
3. Writing for the search engines alone
It is easy to persuade yourself that job one is to get a high listing in the search results. OK, that’s fine. But don’t forget that Google never buys, never subscribes and never joins a membership site. Only readers do.
Writing content primarily for the search engines is just lazy.
Work a bit harder and optimize your content for both the search engines and your readers.
And sometimes, if you have a great content idea for your readers that has no SEO potential at all, write it anyway.
4. Poor site architecture and internal linking
Lazy marketers and writers create one or two second level pages and them fill them with dozens or hundreds of links to articles.
Yes, lazy. When you do that – creating pages with dozens of links – you make it hard for your readers to find what they are really looking for. Remember, not everyone arrives at an interior page directly from the search engines. Some visitors arrive at your home page.
Create an architecture that makes it easy for visitors to find the pages they are looking for.
(In addition, Google has made it clear that it doesn’t much like content pages which offer little other than links forward to dozens of other pages.)
Also, when you fail to use all those new pages as a opportunity to insert links to other pages on your site, you are missing out on an opportunity to engage your readers for longer, and to let Google know which of your pages you consider the most important.
5. Carpet-bombing social media and bookmarking sites
Lazy content marketers upload a new page of content and them submit it to the top 20 social media sites and bookmarking sites. They hit the same sites with every new page uploaded.
Again, that’s plain lazy. And that kind of behavior quickly flags you as someone to ignore on those sites.
The foundation of success on any social media site is conversation. Give and take. Back and forth. Delver value in return for value given back to you. Only then can you gain real traction by submitting links to your own content.
To summarize…
The best web content is not created within 20 minutes. Nor is it almost the same as the last page you created. Nor is it written primarily for the search engines. Nor is it a good match for every single social media site.
Don’t be lazy. Write quality content that readers will love.
If it’s good enough, they’ll be happy to share it.
[NOTE: If you enjoyed this article, you’ll doubtless enjoy the daily content ideas I publish for Web Content Café members. Learn more about membership here...]
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This is a very good article and I feel for it. Although I do not fit into any of the 5 categories, I feel somewhat lazy and I do not feel motivated enough. I want to share my style of writing. I cannot write daily or on regular basis. However, when I sit down to write I can write 10 to 20 articles in one or two days. This is at intervals of three or four months. I know the quality of my work is good because I can feel it. I like your summary, simply put, I should get down to writing quality content on more regular basis.
Nick,
I confess to being guilty of ALL of these web content writing sins.
But you’ve inspired me to do better. I know that I can write good content using my own knowledge and insights but time constraints sometimes cause me to be lazy. Thanks for getting me back on track.
Eunice
Well played, I read it all the way through because the article did exactly as you stated, gave original content. It is always easier to just copy and paste or remix, than to spend the time writing something original.
Thanks for the kick.
Yes. If it’s worth saying, it’s worth saying well. Thank you.
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