5 reasons your best content gets ignored

Even expert writers make these mistakes (+ fixes)

Author

David Broderick
August 21, 2025

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Your next article could read like a dream, be packed with expert insights, and tackle a killer topic…

And still completely flop 🙃

Here are five reasons why:

  • Your headline doesn't stop the scroll

  • It’s riddled with “plague words”

  • There’s no quick payoff for busy scanners

  • It's invisible to search engines

  • It leans on claims instead of confessions

Let’s dive into how to fix each one…

⚠️ Write a scroll-stopping headline

Is it just me, or is writing click-worthy headlines insanely hard?

Before you can use it, you need to understand how our brain processes headlines:

First, it scans for personal relevance. "Is this about me or my problems?"

Then it evaluates cognitive cost. "How much mental energy will this require?"

Finally, it assesses potential reward. "What will I get if I invest my attention here?"

With that in mind, here’s Matt’s three-part headline formula:

  1. Make it personally relevant

  2. Keep it cognitively simple

  3. Promise clear value

Want some headline structures that fit this formula to get you started? Matt’s got ya:

  • "Why [relevant thing] [unexpected outcome]"

  • "The [specific number] [concrete thing] that [desired result]"

  • "How [relatable person] [achieved specific outcome]"

To give your article the best chances of success, follow the blueprint Matt has laid out to make sure its headline “signals relevance immediately and promises clear value without cognitive overload”.

🙅 Remove “plague words”

Some words and phrases are redundant (“Basic fundamentals”).

Some are overused (“In today’s world”).

And some are plain icky (“Synergy” 🤮).

So shoutout to Ian Lurie for pulling together a list of “Plague Words”.

In Ian’s words:

Here’s a list of phrases and words that are a plague on business writing. In marketing copywriting, they're a bad rash. When it comes to creative writing, they're more like freckles and may simply be a sign of a life well-lived.

Run through this list of words and phrases and remove them from your content before you hit publish. Your writing will be better for it.

🎯 Add a TL;DR

I don’t know about you, but I’m noticing way more TL;DRs at the top of articles these days 👀 

Here are three examples just from the articles Aleyda shared in this week’s edition of SEOFOMO:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

I think this might be because of AI?

For two reasons:

  1. To quickly give LLMs context about what the page is about it  

  2. To give readers whose attention span has been rotted by AI Overviews the key info at a glance

So, adding a summary to the top of articles that suit them is a good way to please our robot overlords AND AI-addled human readers.

🚀 Give it an SEO boost

You’re probably already popping internal links to a site’s existing pages in your articles wherever you can.

After all, “internal links are the most powerful SEO lever you control 100% after content,” as Kevin Indig says.

But here’s how to take your internal linking game up a notch (bam!):

Google site:[site you’re writing for] ”[target keyword]”

This will bring up existing articles you can suggest your client can quickly edit to include a link to your new article.

For example, let’s say I’m writing about Tamagotchi for the BBC (a boy can dream!)

site:bbc.com ”tamagotchi” pulls up a bunch of articles I can suggest they edit to include links to my Tamagotchi article once it’s live:

If those links get added, your new article will have the best chances of rising up the SERPs as fast as possible.

🕵️ Turn claims into confessions

Stats are good. You should include them in your content.

After all:

“75% of marketers say personalization increases ROI” is stronger than “personalization increases ROI (trust me bro)”.

But is that really what an expert would say?

Or if we’re being honest…

Is it a giveaway that you hadn’t spent a second of your life thinking about email personalisation before you got the brief for this article and Googled “email personalisation stats”? 🫣

To take your content to the next level, follow Ann Handley’s advice and change those claims into confessions.

Here's an example from Ann:

Claim: "75% of marketers say personalization increases ROI." (Eh.)

Confession: "We used to blast the same email to everyone, because it was fast, and it worked. But it turns out we were dead-wrong." (Instant humanity.)

Night and day, right?

Before you send your first draft to your editor, ctrl+F “%” to find all the stats you’ve added and ask: can I change any of these claims to confessions?

✋ Before you send your next article to your editor…

Be sure to:

  • Write a scroll-stopping headline

  • Remove any “plague words”

  • Add a TL;DR (if it makes sense)

  • Google site:[site you’re writing for] ”[target keyword]”

  • Turn any claims into confessions

And hey, before you go…

Let’s compare notes 🤓

Is there anything you’d add to this list?

Let us know what you check your articles for before you send ‘em to your editor over in TOFU.

TOFU Community Manager

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