A Fatal Mistake Content Writers Make That Kills Their Blog

Every new blog starts with hope.

A hope that someone somewhere will find, read, and like your content.

Appreciation is not possible without engagement.

However, engagement is often a mission-impossible for many online content creators.

Here is why.

Over 252,000 websites are created daily with the hope that they will find their audience one day. However, Ahrefs’ search traffic study shows that 90.63% of web pages don’t get a single visitor from Google.

There is something that the absolute majority makes that leads to failure.

If you want to run a well-performing blog, you have to be aware of this issue and make sure your content is easy to find online.

Here are my observations and tips as a marketer and a content writer.

Many novice content writers make this mistake

If you consistently publish new content on your blog, but it’s not growing then something is wrong.

As a marketer, I know that even the newest websites with zero authority can hit the Google front page.

Some of my website pages reached the first Google search result page despite being new and having zero backlinks.

However, not many content creators understand how SEO writing works. That’s why they create content no one is looking for online.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you run a blog about home wellness and want to write about the ugliest home decorations.

It seems like an interesting topic.

I would not read the whole article, but I would check the pictures. What about you?

Making decisions based on gut feeling is the worst strategy if you want to grow a popular blog.

Be data-driven and analyze whether people are looking for ugly home decorations before writing about this topic.

It turns out that roughly 40 monthly searches happen for this keyword worldwide. Here is the proof:

So, now that you know how popular this keyword is, would you write about ugly home decorations?

I swear you won’t! Because it’s simply not worth it. No one is looking for this specific term online.

Perhaps, it’s worth exploring term variations and finding a broader topic.

I hope you get this point:

Blogging without research will result in many dead web pages that users won’t find ever.

If your topic idea does not have a search traffic potential, your content will sooner or later flop.

High-ranking content is always written based on keyword research. It’s an essential zero-step that can help you find keywords with search traffic potential.

If you want to write blog posts that continuously attract users from organic search, you have to create optimized content on topics with decent search traffic potential.

Here is how you can do it.

How to discover topics people want to read about

You don’t write for yourself.

Instead, you write for your readers. That’s why it’s essential to know that they care about your topic.

It’s a marketer’s job to conduct keyword research and find the most promising keywords for blogging. However, anyone can do quick keyword research to find new topic ideas and validate assumptions.

First, collect a few ideas for blogging.

Here is how you can do it:

Brainstorm new topics yourself

Check what your competitors write about

Check related Quora questions and answers

Read books and draft topic ideas

Check Google Trends

That’s basically what I do, and I never run out of topic ideas for my website.

Once you collect topic ideas, it’s time to check which ones have decent search traffic potential.

The content writing process should always start with keyword research. Otherwise, you risk wasting your time, energy, and money on content that no one will ever want to read.

In reality, you can build an entire business around one article if you know what people look for online.

So, here is how you can check the traffic potential for any keyword for free.

Ahrefs keyword generator lets you check the popularity of your topic in a particular country (Volume) and the competition on search (KD, keyword difficulty.)

Let’s say you want to write an article about matcha latte, but you doubt if people look for it online.

Afrefs gives you a strong “yes” that you should write about matcha. Because over 13,000 people search for matcha latte recipes in the USA every month.

How cool is this?

I’ve been using Ahrefs for over five years. I admit it’s the most intuitive and powerful tool I’ve ever used. However, its full functionality is expensive.

Therefore, I have a separate article on content writing tools for SEO that you can use for keyword research.

With quick keyword research you:

know what people want to read online.

know how many searches happen monthly for your target keyword.

know how competitive your keyword is.

And the most important: you won’t create content that no one is looking for online!

If you aim to rank high on Google and attract visitors from organic search, you’ll also need to do on-page optimization.

My ebook covers many proven on-page strategies that can help you hit the Google front page.

However, the topic is the primary and the most important thing in this chain.

Spend some time analyzing your topic idea, and you’ll always be among the 9.34% of lucky ones whose content continuously attracts visitors from Google.

Final thoughts

Blogging is not rocket science, yet many novice content writers fail without knowing why.

They blame the platform, competition, and readers, but never themselves.

After publishing over 200 blog posts, I learned that writing is always about your reader, not you!

You should write about their pains, needs, and struggles and offer solutions.

You should write using their words because they trigger emotions.

It’s always worth checking if your brilliant content ideas resonate with others before creating content.

An article written for and with users in mind will continuously attract visitors from Google.