It wasn’t until a few years ago that the fancy term “content marketing” became mainstream. Today just about every business is doing some content marketing, i.e. producing content such as articles, eBooks, videos, etc. on topics that interest their prospects. Of course content marketing, when done properly, can have a massive impact on a brand’s lead generation. It’s an incredibly effective way to attract new customers and the better the content, the bigger the interest in your brand.

However, before you launch your next marketing campaign, make sure you are not guilty of the following content marketing mistakes. They seem to be way too common.

1. Selling ALL the time

This may sound counterintuitive but the content you create should not be directly about your company. Telling people how great your brand is and how awesome your products are isn’t going to make them buy from you. What is going to make them buy is building trust. Provide your prospects and customers with useful articles, white papers and tutorials and your website will eventually become a trusted source of information.

2. Posting sporadically

Want to hold an audience? Learn the art of regular content creation and engagement. You may not have time to post every day, but you don’t need to. However, if you have committed to posting a blog article every Wednesday and a video bimonthly, make sure you stick to your commitment.

3. Lacking focus?

One of the worst mistakes you can make is not sticking with a theme in line with your industry. For example, a financial adviser posts an article about tax tips one day and the next day they post about a trip to the beach with their dog. That is exhibiting a serious lack of focus. Content should have a purpose – it should be useful to readers, educational and ideally, not only time-bound.

4. This is BOOORING.

Creating boring posts will definitely ensure you a small audience and readers who don’t turn into customers. When you put content out there, it’s all about how this content represents your brand. First things first, do not stick to articles only. Spice things up a little bit once in a while – create a cool infographic, a short tutorial or a presentation via Slideshare. Use an editorial calendar to organize content and always stay one step ahead.

5. Keywords Spamming

There can hardly be a living breathing person online today who is not aware of the effectiveness of keywords for SEO and web traffic. However, that doesn’t mean you should load up on keywords because the only certain result will be annoying your readers. Only mention your keyword phrases a few times within one post, especially the long ones. Otherwise, your content will sound fake.

6. Bad Grammar, Typos and Other Horrendous Practices

Do not publish any content without top-notch grammar. Not only are typos a big turn-off to readers, but they can seriously ruin your SEO attempts and your credibility.

Guilty of these content marketing mistakes? Check out the biggest trends in 2014 and use the comment box below to share your thoughts.