Common Newbie Errors to Avoid When Creating Contents Online

Content creation is a fine art that takes a lot of practicing, forthrightness, and most importantly-consistency, to successfully pull off.

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Understanding the intricacies of doing Content Creation the right way could mean devoting your time and even your life in its entirety.

But many greenhorn Creatives fall into the rabbit hole of doing things wrongly.

Today we look at these mistakes and errors of Newbie content creators and some tips to make things right.

But as a Newbie trying to break into the market, there are many mistakes that you'll make.

I made them, and I am still making those mistakes. I will come back a couple of lifetimes, and trust me, those mistakes stay innate.

However, making these mistakes should never be misconstrued as some sort of tardiness, NO, rather, they should serve as lessons.

These mistakes could also be likened to a lighthouse guiding you safely through the bumpy and rocky waters of creating content online, even as you explore your creativity to its fullest.

I have highlighted some of these mistakes below; I call them experiences too, so learn from them!

Quitting too Early

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Content creation is supposed to be a marathon, not a sprint.

As a noob, all you want is to see your content go viral with so many views, likes, and comments as social proof that you are most definitely getting it right.

Sadly, those fantasies of getting a massive hit as earlier envisaged (especially after spending grueling hours creating that content); will instantly fizzle when you are hit with the cold reality that all your midnight toil did not materialize into something big.

Now, when we are faced with this kind of adversity or content mishap, as humans, we are wired to take the easy way out, which is to QUIT!

I might not even be the best person to give this advice, because I did the same when the content I created for Instagram and YouTube did not gain the traction I earlier expected.

Notwithstanding, I’d say this now—that was my biggest mistake.

Now I will give you a perfect analogy of why quitting might not be the best option for you as a Creative.

I run a music and entertainment blog where I basically write content around all things music within my country and territory.

In 2019, June, to be precise, I designed a content writing plan and started a thirty-day contest where I published one quality article every day for one month.

The first few weeks were slow and rather dull, and the analytics were kinda gloomy, but I kept at it. Writing and publishing one piece of content a day, every day, for thirty days.

With the clicks not coming and the views still abysmal, I did what every honorable sucker will do- Quit!

But lo, I noticed some spike in traffic in the months following that active month, June in this case, while the favorable stats started showing up in August.

Sadly, I was so gone in my cowardice that working harder to increase the possibility of making the blog a success by staying consistent was lost on me.

Even with the gains I made with this consistency, the strength and willpower to go back were not there anymore.

Like a downward spiral, everything went topsy-turvy within weeks of getting my stats up. I was back to ground zero, sulking and hyperventilating like a loser.

Had it been that I stayed consistent and published one article a day for the next 90 days, well, your guess is as good as mine.

Same case with my medium career, which I have taken a strong resolve to salvage going forward!

My advice here is to stay on point, take a break when you need to, then come back and do the job.

Taking Keyword & Trends Research for Granted:

This is one of the biggest newbie mistakes I made, and believe me, it is not a good one.

As Content Creators, we tend to have this notion that writing (in this context); what we “think” our readers will love should suffice, same with other kinds of content.

Well, that strategy is poor, especially when we have an array of some of the most excellent & exquisite paid and free Keyword Research tools like — The Google keyword planner, chrome browser extension tools like Keywords Everywhere, Google Trends, and other expensive ones like ahref , semrush (for those with deep pockets). As well as my favorite and most scalable keyword tool- Zutrix Keyword.

A powerful SEO suite designed not to bore a deep hole in your pockets yet still go outta the way to give you a ton of value (follow my affiliate link and get this tool ten percent off the original retail price).

So what is the Importance of Keyword Research?

As I clearly stated earlier, doing keyword research before you create any content should indeed be a no-brainer if you ask me- for the following reasons:

1. It increases your chances of getting discovered on the Search Engine Result Pages of Google
2. Search Engine traffic acquired by cleverly optimizing your content for search remains the best form of traffic. The best part is that it is free.
   A comparative case study comparing free (organic) and paid traffic for a popular eCommerce brand was carried out by Wouter T Kritzinger and Melius Wiedelman of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and published in the SA Journal of Information Management. It was discovered that the effort made when optimizing the brand’s content via SEO was quite a huge investment; however, it was a one-off thing. On the other hand, the cost of buying traffic did stack up over time and amounted to a huge running cost for the company. It was also discovered after six months of running the comparison that the traffic generated by SEO far outclassed those gotten from paid ads. Now, this is the power of keywords and understanding SEO.
3. It helps you establish a content creation roadmap that ensures you do not run outta content creation ideas while keeping you relevant in your chosen niche.

Creating Contents that You “Think” The Average User Should Love:

When I started my YouTube channel for my entertainment brand, my team and I went off the radar with our content creation module.

We concentrated more on churning out videos’ with the best visuals (which is also very important); and left the most important part of this process to chance, which is — Creating Content with our users and fans in mind.

You can see why this discourse is designed in a certain order, now if you ignore Keyword research in this case- you will go down that rabbit hole of working countless hours creating an article, video, podcast, or any piece of content. Just for you to be shocked by the poor user engagement characterized by disappointing views.

I mean are you Facebook who like suggesting to me who I got be friends with?

We were on this path of creating content we thought the user would love for quite a while until I decided it was time we got feedback.

So I sent out the contents we did to friends and family (of course it will always be them).

We asked each individual to watch the contents with a clear and open mind and tell us what the person thought, and the feedback we received was mind-boggling and worrisome.

Some told us how big of a sucker we were, while others out of decorum and trying to avoid being harsh- told us that our contents were on point but lacked the vibe and bite to drive home our message.

Others were of the opinion that the contents needed some rejigging and so many other heart-rendering submissions that made us realize just one thing- we need to go back to the drawing board and strategize, reorganize and repurpose our contents mostly for the -USER!

This was when I started with the best tool that was designed to get the job effectively done- which is the Google/YouTube autosuggestion tool.

With this tool, I can easily determine the contents of users made by ‘search intent’.

How to Research for Interesting Content Creation Ideas

Doing content creation Research is so easy these days but while it is easy, it could also be daunting because you are faced with lots of choices, and knowing which is relative to your niche could be really tiresome, to say the least.

Below I have curated some of the best tools and places that can help you 10X your productivity levels and improve your content creation drive.

1. Do a quick search on Google using niche related keywords to see what kind of content your competitors are creating
2. Use the Google auto-suggestion tool to get a bird’s eye view of what users are searching
3. Do the same on YouTube to get a feel of the videos that are getting the most views
4. Visit Quora and look at the top questions in your niche and create content around those queries
5. Udemy is another place to check out what’s hot.
6. Twitter Trends rock people, don’t forget the bird app or the X app, like we know it today.
7. Google Trends can show you what direction a topic is leading and how to capitalize on whatever buzz to create sizzling and timeless pieces.
8. Oh, Snapchat could be confusing, but trust me I get a ton of content ideas while browsing through my subscription and feed.
9. Did you forget Meta… em sorry Facebook?. wow! don’t because if you feel Facebook is declining then you are simply living in the metaverse with your real matter (body), and not supposedly virtually as being proposed by Mack Zuckerberg.
10. Visit Amazon and get real feedback on what crazy and dumb stuff people are buying. If you do product reviews, trust me that’s your best bet.
11. Affiliate Marketing Networks like Clickbank, JVZOO, Warriorplus, CJ Marketplace, etc. could also give your content creation research a massive boost.

Underestimating the Power of Writing Powerful & Sizzling Headlines

I did a piece of Eight Interesting Things about Catchy Headlines That Get Clicks.

In that piece, I came to find out that every interesting HEADLINE with the most click-through rates had one thing in common- they were fun to read, precise and straight to the point, and they had something to teach (for example a how-to), they were confounding and above all arresting.

The Headline is the hook, and not utilizing the first few seconds to get the user to act can mean a lot. This is why so much thought, and profound ones at that, needs to be deployed when you are crafting your headline.

Writing effective and high-end headlines could require more skills than you originally thought. But to make it easier, put yourself in the context of being a reader or average user. Now ask:

• What kind of words make me want to click on the content?
• What value would this content add to what already I know? will it make me laugh? will it make me feel better about myself?
• Will I recommend this content to my friends after seeing it?
• When you ask these types of questions over the content you watched or read- ‘Hey! ‘who wrote this?’ ‘who created this video?’ ‘whose podcast I’m I listening to?;- Then believe me your content’s hook truly rocks. You should understand the average person wants to satisfy themselves first and if what you are offering does not convey that message, sorry buddy- no one cares.

Tips on Improving your Headline writing skills

1. Use words that speak directly to the user- “How to look good after forty”. Every person above forty can benefit from the content because it speaks directly to the person, and chances of recording higher CTR are enhanced.
2. Use words that make things look easy to accomplish- ‘How I fired my Plumber and saved $100’. Now if you were not a techy kind of person with limited handyman skills, this is an interesting piece of content for you. It also speaks about another thing- saving money. So the headlines accomplish two things, it teaches you how to gain useful plumbing skills and more importantly, it gives you the choice of saving more money.
3. Use controversial phrases that could make the user stop and think- ‘Ten things I wish I knew before puberty’. Now we all make mistakes, but this content could be tailored to a person seeking self-redemption, or a parent looking for tips on how to protect their child and guide him or her through puberty.
4. Introduce the F-O-M-O factor (Fear of Missing out); every person is wired to think or assume we are in this time loop and it will be dire if we do not take action, that fear of losing out of a life-changing opportunity will slip and elude us. Imagine seeing this -’ How to lose weight while you sleep, two copies left’.
5. Make it concise and not too lengthy, because people are looking for the next best thing, and given that the attention span of an average person perusing online is less than two secs, you had better make it snappy and get their eyeballs and attention to your content.
6. Don’t forget humor, we live in a very depressive environment and social media has increased the penchant for peeps to feel sorry about their forlorn state, and this usually occurs when they just viewed the Instagram feed of a friend they used to academically dominate back in school. Now you gotta bring back the smile in people by ensuring a degree of humor is infused in your headlines.

Not Hiring Right

As content creators, the job could become monotonous and boring especially when you need to accomplish so much in a limited time. So the urge to hire more skilled hands will always be there.

As a newbie entrepreneur and content creator, I fell into this big mistake while starting out. It almost cost me everything I built.

I never vetted my hirelings, I felt it was right to give every person a platform to grow into the job.

While this could be termed noble, it has its adverse and in most cases- could create some sort of domino effect that could send you to Brokersville before you make your first dollar.

In my own case, I even went as far as hiring some incompetent and redundant family members with no experience just in the bid to make them useful to themselves.

I discovered the demerit to this method when I started losing money and clients; with the many clients complaining of poor and unprofessional jobs and users viewing our content online describing our brand as ‘babies still crawling’ (damn! that was too low).

I got to my breaking point when I started losing Instagram followers, YouTube subscribers, just because I hired the most incompetent team to help me create and deliver content to my followers and subscribers.

There and then I decided to turn all the hirelings to, yes you guessed right- firelings (whatever that means).

For me to attain the long-term goals I set for the brand, I just went solo, which meant I had to do most of the things I detested, though the gains are slow, I trust in the long run things will begin to look up and when I start making good revenue from my content, then I can hire the right.

To make sure I Hire the right persons, I have decided to take the following measures, you can call it Tips to hire the right people or TEAM.

Tips to Hire the Most Effective Team

1. Don’t rush to hire especially if you are yet to start making a profit from your content unless you want to go into full-scale media productions as a B2C company. If you are yet to attain that height, the best thing to do is handle the task yourself.
2. Ensure you vet every person hired. I recall this experience with one of my former staff who I recruited via Facebook Jobs. Now, this dude at first seemed trustworthy to the point I did not bother carrying out any background checks on him. I got to understand the importance of doing background checks when this dude took my expensive Canon D-60 camera, Zoom 6 recorder, and wireless boom mic to a job and did not return this equipment three days after doing the job, In the hysteria, I discovered that I never had any number of his parents, siblings or guarantor. I just relied on the fact that he was a good person and since I treated them right, he would not run away with my expensive production gear. Well, I was lucky that after three days of persistent calls, he returned the equipment citing some issues. I thanked my stars and decided to do the needful, you know the rest of the story.
3. Never hire a family member and if you must do so, ensure you draw the lines of professionalism and family ties. I did and the experience was not one I want to relive again even in a thousand lifetimes.
4. Always request a Resume or curriculum vitae (CV), in your hiring drive. I felt the world was moving beyond paper qualifications to just knowing and understanding the job. Another costly mistake I regret. To me, Resumes and CVs were old school and for the kind of job we were doing, all that was required were just the skills like- video editing, handling cameras, etc. However, you need to come to the terms that understanding the backstory of your employee will help you know who you are dealing with and a Resume in this case will help you establish that.
5. Learn how to hire out some jobs for freelancers. This will save you more time and money since you are given the option of the pay-as-you-go. You only pay for what you need. This is why sites like Fiverr, Upwork, etc. are there. After the pandemic, many companies discovered that most jobs can be done remotely, eliminating the need for staffers who commute from afar daily to work and renting and maintaining expensive office spaces. Learn how to use these services and save yourself more money as well as time.

Not Improving themselves by acquiring the Right Knowledge to run their business:

Self-development is bae!

Now, most beginner or newbie content creators either stay at a certain level of advancement, what I call the complacent level, or risk losing steam when it gets tougher. especially when your total views are so petty that you’d be surprised at how less you are known or even noticed.

A host of others suffer from the shiny object syndrome with their penchant to know everything, master every technology, follow every marketing plan and strategy, or live in a perpetual state of utopia where everything around them is perfect.

Now to filter all this noise and digital pandemonium around you. I’d suggest something very simple- Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn.

I used to have this I-know-it-all attitude back in the day but not anymore; because today, we are faced with a very fast-paced world where you’d always be playing catchup or get phased out.

Daily we are inundated with new technologies and better ways of accomplishing the various tasks in our lives.

Don’t be bothered about all these, instead, take stock of the things you know, remember, with all these latest advancements in tech- literally means we are living in a knowledge-based ecosystem, what you’d need to do is strive to improve yourself to remain relevant as a Creative.

So What should I be doing if I may ask?

The best thing to do is highlight the things you know or have learned in the past few months or years (learn), then look at which of this knowledge has become decrepit or should I say obsolete (Unlearn); then analyze what new knowledge you require especially as it concerns the long-term growth of your business, then — RELEARN.

Now putting this in context, I started out creating content online with limited knowledge of HTML. CSS was not huge then and JavaScript was still in development (BETA).

I created static websites with Dreamweaver and Frontpage (damn! I’m a digital dinosaur y’all).

Then the internet was more text than visuals as we have now, so you can easily get away with knowing a little bit of Markup (HTML).

But as the web continued to expand with more media-specific content, especially video, the need to advance my knowledge of Web Technology was the focus for me at the time.

Then WordPress came along, and since it is more of a low-code Content Management System (CMS) used mostly for creating Blogs, many of us jumped ship and started creating both static and dynamic websites with it, since it was more of a drag-and-drop CMS, also everything was done on the front-end.

But there was a drawback to this, to create stunning and super responsive websites, you needed to understand CSS and Javascript, and even PHP (WordPress was developed with the latter).

Many people started looking for the more easy way out and new CMS like WIX came along, but many third-party companies capitalized on this weakness to create page builders.

Beaver came along with many beautiful WordPress templates created exclusively with a drag-and-drop visual builder. Other companies like Elegant Themes came through with the DIVI builder and Then ELementor and so many others.

I switched to Pagebuilders and DIVI was my choice, especially with its simplicity and scalability. Though this was a turning point for me because I could easily design websites, eCommerce websites, and more with the aid of DIVI; a part of me saw this as redundancy since I could now handle things that were done on the backend easily on the front end with no knowledge of coding.

Having mastered all it is as it concerns WordPress, the company made another announcement that would invariably destroy or limit the use of Page Builders.

The Gutenberg Editor with the release of WordPress 5.9 now supports Full Site Editing, something that was formerly left for the likes of Beaver, DIVI, and Elementor to handle the weight lifting.

There and then I knew it was time to up the ante, and to achieve that, I needed to deepen my knowledge by learning Fullstack Web development.

I mean anybody now can easily create stunning websites with the aid of page builders like DIVI, Elementor, Beaver, etc. So WordPress 5.9 has further lowered the bar of entry.

If I still want to remain relevant in this field, I need to go hardcore, and hardcore, in this case, is Learning full-stack web development which includes HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and learning database tech like MongoDB, coupled with understanding Bootstrap, frameworks like React, VueJS and so on.

So the main thing I am trying to point out here is as a content creator, always strive to make Self-improvement and development your number one priority. Always strive to evolve and while you are at it, avoid getting infected with the shiny object syndrome. Filter out what you need and what you don’t need.

Conclusion:

Creating Content online can be quite lonely when you spend all the hours only to get a few clicks and views, this is one of the major factors why many newbies quit before the party gets started.

Inasmuch as I get to feel the pressure and that urge to throw in the towel, it has been proven over time that consistency and staying hard and true to your ideals will always pay off at the end of the day.

However, for this to happen, you must get your content creation drive right, you can’t be doing the same thing wrongly and expect a different result; you gotta do it right for the clicks and the views to happen- my two cents! thanks for your time

(This article contains affiliate links, meaning that I will make a commission if you purchase the services or products I recommended in this post. It will also be at no cost but it will help me in creating more content like this. Thanks)