Stop Writing For Robots! Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Is Failing

Have you actually analyzed why your content marketing strategy is failing?

Do you have a content marketing strategy at all?

With 70% of marketers actively investing in content marketing, the competition is massive, so failure will occur, but it’s an important part of developing your content.

Although there might be a bunch of reasons why your content marketing strategy is failing, remember this one thing…

…despite Google’s dominance, ultimately, you’re writing for humans, not for Google’s magic spider robots.

Although you’ll need to read my full article below to get the answer, my key takeaway is:

“ You must fit keywords into your content, and not fit content around keywords.”

Understand your Audience to Improve your Content Marketing Strategy

I’ve used quite a few SEO/keyword tools, and they all have their place, but your first port of call should be who your audience is.

Despite Google determining your ranking (sorry, Bing, etc.), when the traffic finally feasts their eyes on your content, that’s when they’ll decide to make that purchase, grab your latest freebie or advocate for you.

To do this, ditch that SEO tool.

Yep, you heard me, but it’s not forever…

This goes completely against what you think you’ve learned from the likes of Neil Patel, Brian Dean & Ryan Stewart.

But hear me out!

These are the actual steps you can take to get this down to a T:

1. Naked writing (it’s not what you think)
2. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes
3. What is the competition talking about?
4. Layer that SEO tool over the top

Let’s go through these in detail to see how they can guide your content marketing strategy some more.

Step 1: Naked writing

STOP! Put your clothes back on before you get arrested for public indecency!

Naked writing is cutting out all the tools that trigger those endorphins when you’ve hit all the targets.

Doesn’t this one look pretty from Clearscope?

Top of the class with that A++ grade!

You’ve destroyed the classmates; completely blown them out of the water!

Job’s done, right?

NO!

While it appears the quality of your content is the best that’s out there, what if the competition’s content is poor already?

Don’t let the AI tempt you to even take a peak! Uninstall it, remove the browser plugin… do whatever it takes!

I challenge you to do this for your next piece of writing.

(I’m actually “naked writing” for this very article; it’s seriously liberating!)

By focusing on the tool alone, you’re not doing yourself justice, and you’re benchmarking yourself too low.

The result is that you’re not delivering to your audience or customers.

Instead, by writing completely naked, all you have to benchmark yourself against is YOU!

This allows you to spread those content wings wide without any AI tools clouding your judgment.

It’s difficult to do, especially if you’re institutionalized to write in this manner, but it’s incredibly empowering when you shed those constraints.

And the first step is to view the content as if you were the audience.

Step 2: Put yourself in your reader’s shoes—don’t fail them!

Which would you prefer out of these when Googling something:

1. Content loaded with keywords that makes no sense

OR

2. Engaging content that flows, makes sense and gives you the answer quickly

We both know the answer, but it can be really hard to deliver #2 when you’re under pressure to optimize your content for SEO, especially when you have boxes to tick:

• Main keyword in a gazillion different places
• Minimum word count of 51,474
• Kindergarten reading grade (Surfer loves doing this!)
• A++ overall grade (triggering nightmares of childhood failings)

My point is, the reader doesn’t see any of the SEO optimization that you go through, and they really don’t care.

Because, what you’re actually doing by focusing on SEO first is satisfying a robot’s needs, not the audience. You’re completely doing your audience a disservice.

So let’s start the revolution!

Ask yourself exactly what it is your audience wants to hear about…

… and write about that FIRST!

Step 3: What is the competition talking about?

Only when you’ve written about what your audience wants to know should you look at the competition to see what they’re talking about.

The main caveat here is that if you’re completely writing in the dark, then you obviously need to look at the competition to do your research.

BUT… resist running a keyword research tool over the competition’s content! That’ll come later.

Don’t even try to have a nosey at finding long tail keywords for SEO.

Here, you’re mainly looking for their angle & the specific topics. Look for things like:

• Definitions: “What is…”
• Pros & cons
• Questions: Can, Does, What, How, Who, etc.

Of course, this is going to be unique to your topic and context, but if you see the same things cropping up across multiple competitors, you’re on the right track.

Here are some simple steps you can do to help with this:

1. Google the main keyword you’re looking at
2. Open up each page for the competition
3. Order them with the lowest DR first (Ahrefs is good for this)
4. See how this matches your written content (that you’ve written naked, remember!)
5. Fill in the gaps

When doing the above, you shouldn’t have to drastically alter your content. You should’ve already been on the right path.

Step 4: Layer that SEO tool over the top

Still have itchy fingers?

Now, and only now, is it time to grab your favorite SEO/keyword tool or software and layer your content over the top.

You’re about to take your clean piece of content and optimize it for SEO, minimizing the chance of keyword stuffing.

If you’re unsure of which tools to use, here are some of the best:

• Page Optimizer Pro
• Ubersuggest
• Surfer SEO
• Topic
• Clearscope
• Frase

They all do kind of the same thing, in the sense of:

• Analyzing the competition
• Telling you what keywords they prioritize
• Give you an interface and guide to do the same as the competition

Affordability does play a big part with these tools, but they’ll help you to finetune your content. There are also some excellent free SEO analysis tools that you can either run in isolation or combine with the above list.

The trick is to pick one, try it, and see if it suits your needs.

But remember, no matter which one you choose, don’t let it completely alter the integrity of your original content.

If you’ve targeted your content towards your audience first, the SEO tool should act as a tune-up.

For example, check out these two headings. Both of them have the same intent and hold the same message, but one is optimized for SEO:

So, what’s next?

Take a breather, sit back, and answer yourself these questions:

• Am I more or less happy with my content marketing strategy?
• Did writing naked come naturally to me?
• Is this a process I can replicate/promote to my team?

Ultimately, writing naturally, without using AI as your primary focus, will help you to avoid keyword stuffing and ensure your content stays on track in terms of a clear message.

Most of all, creating your content should be an enjoyable process. My view is that by only adding in the tools last, it’s much less-stressful and it helps keep my head clear of what I want to achieve.

I hope this helps with your content marketing strategy!