Trusted resources like you create valuable, interesting, educational and/or entertaining content.

This might be in the form of a blog, web show, online magazine, webinar series, ebook and the list goes on.

So, you decide to hop on the content train for your business either by creating or curating the best content in your niche.

But it isn’t spreading. Nobody is commenting. Nothing is really happening. You start to get nervous. “Is this worth it?” you begin to ask yourself.

Why isn’t it spreading? Sort of like looking in the mirror and saying, “Is it me or is it you?”

Normally there isn’t just one answer and it isn’t black and white. Some things directly matter and others go a little bit deeper with more abstract, yet equally important ideas like trust and authority. But, everything adds up.

Here are a few reasons why your content is lonely and how to get back on the right track with a few hundred or thousand friends:

1. Bad Web Design

If you website looks stuck in 1997 with a construction guy digging and music playing or like a run of the mill template, there is a lack of credibility and trust. Do you share content from sites that you don’t trust?

I wish it wasn’t true, but looks matter. Think about first impressions. It is worth investing in a site that is functional and reflects your personality and brand.

2. Lacking Ease Of Sharing

The best content is like peanut butter, easily spreadable. Easily spreadable doesn’t mean that it takes a scholar to find how to share easily via social networks, email, etc.

Enabling your community, no matter how big or small to share with ease can make a huge difference.

Do you have one click sharing?

3. Product Focused Content

The best content isn’t about your product. The harsh reality is nobody cares about any of our products. People do care about interests, passions, hobbies, solving their problems, getting answer to key questions, learning etc.

For example, let’s pretend you sell dog food. A mistake is to make the content about the food. Meaning features and benefits.

The fix here is to focus on an interest or passion. People aren’t passionate about dog food. Instead, I bet there are plenty of people passionate about dogs. Training dogs, dog health, etc. A better play is for the content to focus on the bigger picture and not just the product.

4. Not-You Focused Content

Injecting personality, passion and quirks into your content? Always a good thing. Making it about you and how amazing you are. Yikes.

Make it about them, not you. It will do better. Trust me.

5. Lack Of Passion

If you aren’t passionate about your content, it will show and will hinder progress. Nobody spreads half-baked material. If you can’t get excited and pumped up about your content, how can you expect anyone else to be?

6. Unclear, Boring Or Ridiculously Long Titles

I get it. Don’t judge a book by its cover or a piece of content by its title. Fair enough. However, the reality of the matter is titles matter, a lot. They matter for search engines and humans. When you have 50 titles in front of you, which ones jump out? Why?

Spending time on titles is worth the time.

7. Oops, I Forgot My Marketing

We have all fell into this trap. You spend all the time creating the content and posting it and then no time is left topromote it. You can have the greatest content in the world, but if you don’t spend time marketing and promoting it, then it will be the loneliest, saddest, greatest most useful content in the world.

My recommendation, especially when getting rolling is to spend 80% of total “content time” marketing and promoting.

This means creating one-on-one connections on social media sites, expanding your network, digital schmoozing, perhaps hosting an event or meet up. Often the best online marketing happens offline.   Content plus connections equals success. You have to give to get.

One bonus fun fact: Time. Trust, influence, authority and community isn’t built with just one post or overnight. It takes blood, sweat and tears.  While the opportunity to create has been democratized, that means you have to work hard to stick out. Keep at it, experiment, refine brick by brick, click by click, over time you might be the ruler of the next content empire.

What has been your experience? What would you add to the list?

This was a guest post by David Siteman Garland. Garland is the Founder of The Rise To The Top, The #1 Non-Boring Resource For Building Your Business Smarter, Faster, Cheaper.

1. Use .htaccess to redirect the non-www version of your website to the www version.

2. Extend the registration of your domain for at least five years.

3. Make sure that when a visitor clicks your website’s logo, they are taken back to the homepage.

4. If you think your font is too small, make it bigger!

5. Remove widgets that aren’t directly enhancing your website.

6. Include an easy to find contact link, e-mail address or phone number on every page of your website.

7. Use a CSS stylesheet to make your website printer friendly.

8. Fix or remove broken links (external and internal).

9. Add ALT tags to all of your images.

10. If your website is using frames, get rid of them!

11. If you don’t have a robots.txt file, create one.

12. Provide the same basic navigation menu on every page of your website.

13. Use the same color for links throughout your website.

14. Spell check your content.

15. Format your content so that it is easy to scan.

16. Add at least one picture to every page of your website.

17. If you don’t have an About page, create one.

18. Use your About page to show your brand’s personality.

19. Include at least three pictures on your About page.

20. If your website has pop-up windows, get rid of them!

21. Link to relevant social media profiles from your About page.

22. Add a search box near the top of your website’s layout.

23. Create a privacy policy page.

24. Place a link to your privacy policy at the bottom of every page.

25. Use dashes in filenames instead of underscores.

26. Add a link to Google Maps on your Contact page.

27. Add internal links from one piece of content to another.

28. Write a unique META description for all of your main pages.

29. Validate your source code and correct any errors.

30. If you have a link exchange page, get rid of it!

31. Add a site search box to your 404 page.

32. Create a sitemap for your website.

33. Add a link to your sitemap at the bottom of every page of your website.

34. Add a copyright notification to the bottom of every page of your website.

35. Underline your links throughout your website.

36. Turn off music that automatically plays.

37. Get rid of any flashing GIF animations.

38. Include your website logo at the top of every page.

39. Register the .net and .org versions of your domain and redirect them to your website.

40. If you don’t have a help or support section, create one!

41. When you answer a question via e-mail, add the answer to the help/support section.

42. Look at your contact forms and see if there is any information you don’t have to request from your visitors.

43. Add your analytics code to every page of your website.

44. Get rid of any pages that automatically resize visitors’ browser window.

45. Create a favicon for your website.

46. Only use email address that include @yourdomain.

47. Label each box of any forms on your website.

48. Show a confirmation any time a visitor completes a significant action on your website.

49. Create one new piece of quality content for your website every week.

50. Leave a comment under this post!