It is disappointing when you spend a lot of time creating your latest piece of content for a website or blog, only to discover that nobody is interacting with it. Often, we may ask ourselves what in particular we did wrong – was it the topic, the format, the title or the content itself that led to no one finding it interesting? This is not only hurtful to your ego, but also detrimental to the well-being of your website or blog. Below, we will outline five of the biggest reasons why your content is either not receiving the positive feedback and interaction you expected or is receiving negative attention.

Keyword Stuffing and Advertising

Are you forcing certain keywords and plugs for products and services too bluntly into your content? If it does not flow naturally, then you may be sending out red flags to anyone who is reading your content. While it is necessary to always be pinging your site‘s content, you must do so in a way that does not feel abrasive or forceful. People will view this type of advertising as a sign that you only want to earn revenue and are not a valuable spokesperson for the topic at hand.

Lack of Aesthetics

Research has shown that content featuring images and other forms of multimedia is 70% more likely to be shared by others than content that is merely text. If you have not been incorporating aesthetic elements into your posts and pages, then you are not engaging your readers’ creative side. Regardless of what people may say, they also like to be entertained and dazzled while they read; just be sure to keep your images from being over the top in contrast, colour or subject.

Bad Title/Introduction

In many cases, readers only see the title and first paragraph of each of your blog posts (or websites, when browsing search engines). If your title is lacking a combination of creativity and a brief description of the subject material, then readers may look elsewhere for clarity. Remember: being too creative or literary may confuse some readers, so there must be a balance – as well as a well-written introduction to keep the readers’ attention.

Improper Formatting

Are you breaking up each mini-topic into separate paragraphs? Are you even using paragraphs? Many readers find content that is not properly formatted to be a pain to cipher through for the appropriate information; if you are guilty of run-on sentences and large paragraphs, then you will want to revise the affected material. Particularly when blogging, you do not want to use more than 3-4 sentences per paragraph or else risk making your content look daunting and unreadable.

Irrelevant Content

Have you recently shifted angles when it comes to producing content for your blog or website? Often times, we can slowly but surely begin to take on a completely different topic by covering a particular angle on a topic, then proceeding to cover an angle of a topic directly related – until we realize that the content being covered is no longer the same as the original intent of the blog or website. This often happens when you are pinging your site in order to appear in various search results; verify that your topics are still relevant to your web portal and therefore, your readers.