S02 E01: Why It’s So Hard to Produce Great Content These Days

All that to say, I am happy to be back in the podcast chair, which in case anyone is wondering, is actually in my mom’s walk-in closet. The only place I could find with. Soft furnishings to absorb my voices. Shrill echoes. Today I wanna talk about content because at the end of the day, without it, your website is an empty canvas or at least a canvas with squares and colorful sections and pictures and not much else.

Content is something that contributes a lot to your rankings, but it’s also something that can be overlooked by data minded SEO agencies because it’s not always about what you write, but how it’s written. As we’ve said so many times before in our blogs and on the podcast, your SEO strategy shouldn’t be focused on pleasing Google and Google alone.

That’s really important. You. Sort to maybe wanna make sure your website works for the end user. You know, the person you’re hoping will turn into a customer one day at Geeky Tech. All content we advise customers to write starts at the keyword research phase and everything. I mean, Everything is funneled through an SEO brief that the writers, either ours or theirs, we’ll use as a blueprint to write SEO-friendly content that not only reads well, but also most importantly has high ranking potential.

But there’s a problem, folks. A huge problem, actually. One big stinking problem that stops. Dead in our tracks and prevents us from moving past this very crucial stage, leaving all subsequent work stalled like a 5:00 PM LA traffic jam. The problem, ladies and gentlemen, is that it seems to be so difficult to produce great content.

Yeah, I’m serious. You might be thinking, Wait a second, I thought content writers are as common as social media influencers. They’re everywhere, aren’t they? And yeah, that’s true. We aren’t a rare breed of animal. There are quite a lot of us, but the fact remains, companies are struggling to publish SEO focused content.

So the question is why I have a theory which not everyone agrees with, including people on my own team, and that is you can have a great writer and you can have someone who understands SEO best practices, but finding someone who meets both these essential require. Isn’t as easy as everyone thinks. As a content editor, I wanna work with a writer who understands the objective of a content brief, which is of course, to make sure the page is written to rank for a specific keyword, right?

But as a person, I also wanna read a page that’s easy and dare I say, enjoyable. To read and those kinds of writers aren’t as easy to find. Let’s see if we can solve this mystery together by looking at possible reasons for this content quagmire. And let me be clear, this isn’t going to be one long writer bashing episode.

I have a hunch nay, a very logical theory that the problem isn’t always the typical, Ugh. It’s so difficult to find good help these days. The problem might, in fact, come all the way from the top. Which brings me to possibility number one, which is that marketing teams are too busy to keep up with the heavy demands of s.

I’m just gonna say right off the bat that this is what Geeky tech is experiencing right now. Yep. It’s not necessarily that there are no writers available to create your pages, it’s just that, that there are so many bottlenecks everywhere, whether it’s lack of time, miscommunication, or constant priority reshuffling.

Maybe the real problem isn’t the availability or capabil. Of writers, but simply a matter of operational constraints or red tape bureaucracy or whatever you want to call it. If this is really the problem, then hallelujah. There is a solution. Mind you, in order to prioritize fixing this bottleneck, it’s important that companies understand the true value of their content.

And when I’m talking about valuable content, I really. Optimized webpages. Not all content is created equal or even needs to be optimized, of course. But in order to maximize your SEO results, you’re definitely going to need to produce pages on a regular basis that your SEO team can optimize. How else can you expect to capitalize on keywords you wanna rank for?

So going back to the possible reason for this problem, that being that marketing departments have no time to find writers to create those pages. The solution to this one seems to be, first, realize that content is actually a huge SEO priority, and second, adjust your priorities accordingly. Which brings me to possibility number two.

You’ve hired writers who don’t know anything about s. Again, not necessarily a problem in and of itself. SEO writing skills aren’t that difficult to hone, but do you have the time and the know-how to educate your content team about how to turn a brief into an optimized page? I just wanna add that not everyone agrees with me on this point.

My coworker, Joe doesn’t care so much about this fact claiming that SEO writing is something that can be learned on the fly Fair. But as someone who’s had to edit content from writers who know Didly squat about SEO best practices, let me tell you that it’s a frustrating process. The work itself may be worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, but if it doesn’t hit those telltale SEO markers, it slows down everyone’s job, which also increases your marketing costs.

SEO writing is far from being an instinctive skill if there is such a thing. In fact, so much of SEO content writing often flies in the face of creative writing or journalism, which is a field so many of us come from. There are two solutions to this one. The first solution train your writers. Obviously, they need to know not only the how’s but the why’s.

Give them a crash course, an SEO so that they understand why it’s so important to follow a brief. The second solution, be more discerning in your hiring process if you don’t have time to train your staff. The closer your writers can get to creating a finished product, the less expensive your pages will be and the faster you could see results.

So let’s go on to possibility number three. Your writers follow the brief just fine, but they’re writing sub. Remember folks, your general audience simply will not commit to reading huge blocks of texts. We will actually roll our eyes and question your company’s credibility if your page is terribly written.

Humans are ridiculously impatient creatures who just want to scan for the information we’re looking for, and if we can even read what’s on the page because the grammar syntax or whatever sounds like it was written. SIM’s character, forget it. This is not an optimized page make. We are not striving to hit a certain word count or keyword density just for the sake of stroke.

In Google’s sexy and mysterious algorithm, you are a human writing for humans. Remember that I know somewhere on this planet my colleague Joe is shrugging his shoulders and muttering something along the lines of content. Writers are a dime a dozen, but I would posit that good content writers are.

Writing is a skill that not everyone can master. And while we’re on the subject, it’s also a skill that not even AI has quite perfected. So take that robots. Your content isn’t automatically good if you follow the SEO brief down to the letter. It’s not one of those. It’s so easy. Even I can do it jobs, trust me.

The solution here would be read through applicant portfolios very carefully. Oh, and also don’t get the IT guide to write your content unless he’s also a skilled writer. So let’s summarize this puppy. So far, good content is hard to create for three possible reasons. Number one, your marketing team hasn’t created the right environment to produce pages on a regular basis.

Number two, your content writers can string two sentences together, but they dunno anything about seo. Number three. You know, a guy who understands seo, but whose writing skills absolutely suck. There’s one last possibility that I wanna bring up because it’s something we’re currently facing at the moment, and it’s a very big problem with kind of an easy solution.

So, possibility number four, you’ve tracked down the perfect content writer. I mean, they write well and they understand seo. They don’t know Jack, about your company, your services, or even what your organization sounds like. In other words, nothing they write sounds like you. Yeah, that is a big deal. You’ve got your brand’s reputation to uphold your customers, to impress and your shareholders to appease.

You definitely don’t wanna publish something on your site that undermines your company’s credibility, especially if your target audience hails from highly technical, medical, or financial. What I’m trying to say is that your writer has to write as though the company itself is speaking, and because of that, your writer also needs to know what they’re talking about on a deeper level than some rando off the street.

Yeah, that is definitely challenging, but what to do? Well, there are workarounds to that too. Creating a company style guide or branding document gives your writer a peek inside the company’s language. Giving the writer the time and resources they need to research and write a piece worthy of your company name is so essential.

You’ll probably find that sticking to one writer makes this process much easier over time. The longer they write for your brand, the better they understand what you’re looking. So let’s summarize again, shall, Why is it so hard to produce good content these days? Maybe it’s one or all of these things.

Your marketing team doesn’t have the time to hire and train content writers, let alone set up a steady stream of content for them to write for reasons X, Y, and Z. Content writers may be superior wordsmiths, but suck at seo, which can eat away at your marketing budget. Alternatively, you might have a default writer who understands how to optimize a page, but knows little about crafting readable, informative, and enjoyable content.

Lastly, you may be underestimating what it takes to create content that’s credible. Well researched and in line with your brand, which could result in pages that are well written, optimized, but totally outside the scope of your marketing objective. This Dear Marketing Friends, is kind of the situation, or at least that’s how I see it.

And let’s not forget that all this talk about content writing is so far removed from the actual day-to-day operations of your business that it’s no wonder so many marketing teams are struggling to find the time to set up a proper content writing team. We get it. In the grand scheme of things, maybe content isn’t as important as sales or customer service.

Drafting page after page of optimized content is understandably not that big of a deal when you consider the entire business. To overcome these challenges, organizations really only have two options. Invest in an in-house content team. Or outsource to an agency to help you decide which option is best for your company, click on the link in our show notes after you’re done listening to read our handy dandy guide.

So I think that’s actually all for today. I know it’s a short one, but I hope today’s episode has encouraged you to take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself, How can I make the website and even the world a better place to be anyway. Listeners, thank you so much for joining me today. If you want to learn more about how to empower your business with seo, we are going to leave a ton of resources for you in the show notes.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at Geeky Tech. Oh, that’s so hard to say. At Geeky Tech Geeks for all things SEO and advertising related. And lastly, listeners, just a small favor. If you like what you heard today, be sure to subscribe, like, and follow us on Apple Podcasts. Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

That’s it for now. Peace Out Marketing Gigs.