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11 Content Marketing Mistakes + Best Practices to Avoid Them

To be successful, your content strategy must avoid common mistakes. Learn about 11 content marketing mistakes and best practices to avoid them.

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

Content marketing is a strategy that builds your brand presence over time through customer relationships fostered by the valuable and relevant content you share. 

Turning readers and viewers into customers is a primary focus of content marketing, along with building brand awareness — to be successful, your content and strategy must avoid some common pitfalls.

Let’s review 11 content marketing mistakes and best practices to avoid them.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • Some of the most common content marketing mistakes include: keyword stuffing, prioritizing content quantity over content quality, and forgetting to include a call to action (CTA).
  • The best practices for avoiding content marketing mistakes include: creating content with your audience in mind, following Google’s guidelines for helpful people-first content, improving readability, and defining search intent.

Looking to optimize your content? Try the Originality.ai Content Optimizer to stay a step ahead of the competition.

1. Not Understanding What Content Marketing Is — and Isn’t

The most common content marketing mistake is not grasping or considering its true purpose. 

By breaking down the definition of content marketing into individual parts, we can learn a lot about what it is and isn’t. 

Content marketing:

  • Is a marketing strategy.
  • Uses valuable and relevant digital media (text, videos, podcasts, etc.).
  • Entertains, educates and informs.
  • Attracts, engages, and retains a clearly defined audience.
  • Establishes expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
  • Promotes brand awareness and increases visibility.
  • Builds relationships with customers.
  • Engages an audience through the customer journey.

Content marketing isn’t the same as outbound marketing or direct advertising. 

It is a customer-focused, inbound marketing strategy that builds connection and loyalty through engagement and valuable content. 

Keeping this in mind helps to avoid many of these other common content marketing mistakes. 

2. Not Knowing Your Audience

Content marketing speaks to a targeted audience that is clearly defined.

If you don’t know who you are trying to reach, you can’t research and understand what they are looking for. 

Rather than focusing on a generic message, your content should be tailored to the consumers you want to reach, identifying their needs and interests and providing valuable information that establishes your business as a trusted resource or authority. 

3. Being Too Salesy

The goal of content marketing is to give your audience something of value that makes them think highly of your company and consider your brand a trusted source. 

Know your audience. Know what questions they are asking and what information they are looking for. Then, give them fresh insight and valuable information that establishes your brand as a company they’ll think of and return to when they are ready to buy. 

Providing unique insight and information is also a key part of creating the people-first content that Google prefers (more on that in tip 5).

4. Missing Search Intent

Search intent, or user intent, is the reason or intention behind someone’s online search. 

If someone has just spilled coffee on their white sofa, they might grab their phone and enter search terms relevant to help solve their immediate problem. In this case, the search intent is informational and to remove coffee stains

When you craft a content marketing piece, whether it’s a blog article, landing page, product description, or social media video, the user’s search intent should be at the root of the content you create. 

The goal of your content is to educate, inform, and entertain. To do these things, you must first understand what your customers are searching for, what their interests are, or what problem they need help solving. 

5. Not Creating People-First Content

People-first content is directly related to search intent. Google prioritizes content containing helpful and reliable information intended to benefit people. 

If you are creating content solely intended to rank on the SERPs (search engine results pages) such as by using tactics like keyword stuffing (see our next tip), it misses the point.

Create great content that is insightful, fresh, authoritative, and comprehensive for the best results. 

6. Keyword Stuffing

Avoiding keyword stuffing goes hand-in-hand with search intent and people-first content. 

Keyword stuffing is essentially cramming as many keywords and keyword phrases as possible into your content. It’s a bad practice that makes writing sound unnatural. Keyword-stuffed content can negatively impact your SEO and provide a poor user experience. 

Alternatively, if you focus on high-quality content that is people-first and responds to search intent, you’ll find the incorporation of important keywords comes naturally.

7. Using Low-Quality AI Content

The goal of content marketing is to establish your business as a thought leader. An expert in the field. A trusted place to turn to when they are ready to buy or subscribe to a service. You'll miss that goal if you use low-quality, AI-generated content. 

Generative AI might have a role in some creative processes. 

However, creating critical content intended to elevate your brand shouldn’t just be in the hands of AI. After all, Google may penalize AI content that doesn’t comply with its spam policies.

High-quality content is insightful, well-researched, and has a fresh perspective based on real-world experience. 

This is where the heart of your brand — and the human creatives who know it — comes in. 

Learn more about the issues with AI text in web publishing.

8. Missing a Call to Action

Missing a call to action (CTA) is a common error in all types of marketing. 

In direct advertising, it is easy to include a CTA such as “Buy now!” or “Call today.” 

However, the call to action in content marketing is a little different, especially when avoiding overtly promotional or salesy language. 

When you create an article, video, or other piece of content, think about what you want the reader to do to further their engagement. 

Examples may include “Subscribe to our newsletter,” “Opt-in to our emails,” or “Download our guide.” This is also a great spot to highlight a lead magnet

This might be a conversation that involves the entire team, including sales. What next step gets the audience further into the customer journey?

9. Ignoring Readability

Once you know your audience, your goal is to reach as many people within it as possible. 

Readability is a measure of how understandable your content is. Knowing how to make content readable to the widest range of people in your audience is vital. 

You invest a lot of work into your content marketing; addressing readability ensures more people can connect with it. 

Conveniently review the readability of your content with the Originality.ai Readability Checker.

10. Emphasizing Quantity Over Quality

Word count should correlate with the topic you are writing about. Your blog articles, for instance, should be as long as they need to be for thorough and engaging coverage. Longer is not always better. 

After analyzing 900 million pages of content, Ahrefs advises that it’s better to prioritize the quality of content over word count (although they recommend 300 words as an average minimum starting point to communicate topics).

To cover your topic properly and address SEO, remember the idea of people-first content and strive for E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. 

Follow all the best practices of great content, and you’ll know the right length when you reach it. 

11. Undefined Expectations 

One of the most common mistakes is expecting that content marketing will be a quick fix. Content marketing is more of a long game. 

True authority and customer loyalty are earned over time. When content marketing is working, customer engagement, brand awareness, and lead generation will follow. But it takes time.

Plan your content marketing strategy accordingly and build in the monitoring and benchmarking of key content marketing metrics that are relevant to your goals:

  • Organic traffic
  • Keyword rankings
  • Backlinks
  • Audience growth
  • Engagement
  • Leads
  • Conversions

Celebrate small successes as they come, and keep creating quality content as you patiently await the payoffs of the long-term strategy.

Final Thoughts

In content marketing, authentic, thorough, well-crafted content that puts the audience first will yield better results. If your team keeps that in mind, you’ll encounter fewer of these common mistakes. 

Learn more content marketing tips and insights in our top guides:

Originality.ai Writers

Our experienced team of writers at Originality.ai are passionate about creating innovative and compelling content across a range of topics, from grammar guides to readability, content marketing, and more!

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to fill out the entire form?

No, that’s one of the benefits, only fill out the areas which you think will be relevant to the prompts you require.

Why is the English so poor for some prompts?

When making the tool we had to make each prompt as general as possible to be able to include every kind of input. Not to worry though ChatGPT is smart and will still understand the prompt.

In The Press

Originality.ai has been featured for its accurate ability to detect GPT-3, Chat GPT and GPT-4 generated content. See some of the coverage below…

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Featured by Leading Publications

Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

Vahan Petrosyan

searchenginejournal.com

I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

Tom Demers

searchengineland.com

After extensive research and testing, we determined Originality.ai to be the most accurate technology.

Rock Content Team

rockcontent.com

Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

ranktracker.com

ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

Ashley Stahl

forbes.com

Originality.ai Do give them a shot! 

Sri Krishna

venturebeat.com

For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

Industry Trends

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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