This July, Google Search Liaison announced a Google Core update regarding the quality of content published by websites. Therefore, there will be fluctuations in your content online search results and visibility for everyone involved in content marketing and blogging.
These kinds of updates are necessary for google search engine users. So that the visitors can have high-quality content that is helpful to them. However, it makes life a little bit more exciting for digital marketers and SEO professionals. They need to update and produce content that will perform well with search engines upcoming updates. The journey starts with finding all the new tricks to make your content succeed. Sadly, some tricks perform worse than others.
We in Expert Circle do not know everything, thus, we have reached out to a number of experts from our extensive network to share the blogging mistakes to avoid.
Tabitha Naylor
Owner at TabithaNaylor.com
The big mistake is not to make your blogging and content practices evergreen
SEO is a fast-paced industry, with Google at the forefront. Google makes thousands of updates annually to the search algorithm to improve user experience and quality of search results. Twice a year, there are broad core updates which affect website ranking across thousands of sites.
Google maintains that any changes experienced post-update are not deliberate or targeted at specific sites. That said, how can your website weather updates and SEO trends and stay relevant?
- Deliver better quality content that serves users’ needs
- Improve the user experience on your site
Here are 2 ways to improve user experience and content quality:
1. Answer the Search Query in the Title and Introduction
SEO trends in recent years have shifted towards long-form content to increase the user’s time on the site as well as the authority and expertise quality rankings. While in-depth, long-form content leans more towards storytelling.
However, with the rise of zero-click searches as Google seeks to improve search result relevance, search engines want you to give the searcher what they’re looking for as fast as possible. 
Get rid of the fluff.
Give a summarized answer to the search query in your content’s introduction or soon after then draw the customer in with more detail in the rest of the article.
2. Improve User Experience of Your Content
Usability is a key area of Google’s Core Web Vitals that are increasingly targeting the algorithm towards user-centric metrics such as site interactivity, loading time and visual stability.
On the content end of user experience, you need to optimize your content to give the user what they need as quickly as possible.
Make your content easily scannable with shorter paragraphs and creative, value-adding sub-headings that keep the article on track.
Add visual breaks like informative images, lists, tables and infographics to provide memorable mini-summaries of your content throughout
Present your content in a well-written, structured format that is easily navigable without ad pop-up clutter.
The key to creating evergreen content is to create content that goes quickly to the core and to present it in an easily digestible way.
Harshil Gathani
Manager – Finance Planning & Analysis at RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group
The following should be kept in mind for blogging based on my personal experience:
- Relevant up to date content that connects to a wider audience
- Proper research of the topic and relevant keywords to draw the attention of the audience
- Not comprising on the quality even if the post is shorter but it should be worth the value
- To be updated on what’s happening in society or your industry, i.e. to be synced with the marco scenario
Kevin Phillips
Content Marketing Consultant at IMPACT
I developed a blogging mistakes list. Many blogs that were once published monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily end abruptly. It’s not too late to get it into the ICU, breathe new life into it, and see it make a swift recovery. Don’t stop making these common blogging mistakes, you can still save your blog.
Common blogging mistakes that I have observed
– Choosing the wrong topics
– Not publishing frequently/consistently
– Not having a content manager
– Content not user-focused
– Articles not comprehensive enough
– Poorly formatted content
– Not linking to other content
– No next action
– Not updating content
– Not repurposing content
– Terrible titles
Priya Florence Shah
Group Editor at SHEROES
Our sites did well after the 2021 June Core Update. All of the work we invested in collaborating with experts on SHEROES and Naaree.com to create authoritative content paid off and we saw a significant increase in traffic and backlinks. So our sites are doing even better after the Core update.
Our focus has been on creating content that meets Google’s E-A-T guidelines. On SHEROES we have a number of Champions and subject-matter experts who contribute their expertise to help the community. We work with them to write blog posts that are useful, answer our audience’s questions and have information based on years of expertise.
All our efforts are aimed at helping Indian women become financially and emotionally independent so our content also focuses on topics and themes that do that.
During the pandemic, there was a great deal of interest in ways to earn money from home. We saw a huge spike in traffic on work from home and remote work and interest in remote work and careers one can do from home continue to grow.
Our social commerce venture, SHECO, which offers women a way to earn money from their mobile phones got a lot of interest and creating content around that has been immensely useful.
Our new SHOPonSHEROES online store builder helps women start a store and sell their products and services on the SHEROES portal so we’re creating a lot of content around business startups and promotion.
Sadly, the pandemic also saw an increase in domestic abuse issues, so we saw a lot of traffic to our free online counselling services and helpline and this trend doesn’t seem to be decreasing.
Given all these trends we’re seeing and the things we’ve learned over the last year or so, here’s my answer to the question “What are the blogging mistakes to avoid in 2021 after the Google Core update?”
Avoid fluffy content, focus on authoritative long-form content and collaborate with experts to write content that you’re not qualified to write. Build authoritative links to your content and follow the advice of SEO experts like Brian Dean, John Lincoln, Neil Patel and Matt Diggity.
Jordan Levy
Growth Specialist at LevyX
The biggest mistake people are still making is that they are solely focused on the discovery and not the user experience. Their goal is to grow their rankings and optimise for bots but they ignore making the content readable to a normal human.
Ekta Swarnkar
Freelance Content Writer & Blogger
After the core web vitals update, we just can’t ignore the site speed factor. If you don’t lie in the low-speed parameter, you are not going to rank. No matter how awesome your content is.
That’s why the things that you may have ignored in the past can be your worst blogging mistakes.
But if you are a bit cautious about them, it can magically help you rank higher.
The worst blogging mistake would be not having a well-optimized blog theme.
A poor blog theme can make your site load slowly because of poorly coded files. It can break your site.
While a good and lightweight theme can help you load your content faster and hence rank higher.
Two of my favourite blog themes that are optimized for speed are Astra and Generatepress.
I use the Astra theme and it has helped me a lot in improving my site speed.
Chris Ameto
Fitness Blogger
The blogging mistake to avoid is reacting to the update and trying to shift your blogging approach to match Google’s new algorithms. Since updates are continues, you should keep your focus on creating high-quality content. The more valuable and unique your content is, the more likely it’ll produce good search results in any climate.
Joydeep Bhattacharya
CEO at Seosandwitch
If you are into blogging, then I would strongly suggest to keep the content quality to the highest standards. There are so many new blogs being launched every day. The competition is naturally higher and Google algorithms are working harder to rank only the freshest, accurate, and unique content pieces that helps the readers.
As a blogger, here are some mistakes to avoid in 2021:
1- Don’t compromise on the content quality. Perform a 10x content analysis to check the top ranking pages for your primary keyword and prepare content that is 10 times better than your competitors.
2- Avoid buying links because Google is strictly against the practice of paid links. Publish quality content regularly and this should help you naturally acquire links in the long run.
3- Don’t forget page speed and core web vitals. Use the search console to check for issues and choose the fastest site theme so that your website runs super fast.
As a blogger – you should focus on three things – content quality, link quality, and website speed.
Lindsay Kolowich Cox
HubSpot Academy
As I wrote in my article Beginner Blogger Mistakes most of a blog’s traffic comes from organic search — users will look for something on a search engine and then click on your blog if it fits their search criteria. Because so many organisations seek your audience’s attention, it’s critical to avoid typical blog blunders.
There are many mistakes that I can point out. I have outlined the top 8 mistakes that I have seen.
Mistake: You only consider topics that are of personal interest to you.
While ideas may arrive at random times, they should never be random. Just because it’s a nice concept in general – or something that personally fascinates you – doesn’t imply it’s a good idea for your organisation. Think of the purpose of your blog; if it is to help people, then the post should be like a tool to help your intended audience.
Mistake: You forget about your readers.
If you want your blog material to be successful, it must connect with your readers and compel them to act. One of the most common errors is believing that your content will perform when you haven’t considered your audience or the activities you want them to do. If you’re not consciously thinking about your audience’s pains, you’re just creating content for content’s sake, which is a waste of resources.
Mistake: Your writing is very rigid.
Writing a blog post is not the same as writing a term paper. Bloggers that are just starting generally only have experience with the latter. The writing style of a term paper is not the writing that people love reading. Most individuals who see your content will not read it all the way through. If you want to keep people engaged, you must urge them to keep reading by writing in an easy-to-read manner. Make your writing more conversational; the more approachable your writing is, the more people will like reading it. So, simplify your writing.
Mistake: You believe that people are interested in you as a writer.
It may sound harsh, but it is true: When people first begin blogging, they believe that their audience would be naturally interested in their experiences and hobbies… but this is not the case. It’s not a criticism of them as people; it’s just that when you’re new, no one is interested in you or your experiences. People are far more interested in what you can teach them. You may, however, incorporate aspects of your personality into your writing to make readers feel more at ease with you. It is totally up to you how you do this. To add personality to your writing, search for methods to connect with your readers about the issue you’re writing about.
Mistake: You digress.
Don’t bring up too many personal experiences that bury the point you’re trying to make. The finest blog articles commit to a larger idea and then gradually express it numerous times in little ways from start to finish. Then, in each part of the article, restate your position and repeat it again and again.
Mistake: Your subjects are very wide.
When people first start writing, they usually want to write about very broad themes, often far too wide. It is critical to nail down very precise blog themes if you want to get the ground running with your first few entries. More focused subjects attract smaller, more targeted audiences, which are higher quality and more likely to convert into leads and customers.
Mistake: Your writing is a mental dump.
The stream-of-conscious writing style isn’t ideal for blog postings. Most people will scan your blog entries rather than read them. Therefore, they must be well arranged. First, make a list of the main takeaways you want your readers to acquire from your post. Then, divide those key points into larger section headings. When you include a section header every few paragraphs, your blog article becomes easier to read, which is beneficial for SEO.
Mistake: You do not rely on data as proof.
Arguments and statements become considerably more persuasive when facts and research support them. As marketers, we must not only persuade people to support us on a subject, but we must also persuade them to act. In every excellent tale, you’ll provide a major point, provide evidence, and conclude with a takeaway for the audience. Data may be used in blog articles to establish your primary point and demonstrate why it is important to your readers or as evidence throughout the piece.
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