The 5 Most Common Internet Marketing Mistakes

Oct. 25, 2012 - PRLog -- The Web has drastically changed the way that companies market their products and services, but it’s a process that still in its infancy. Many owner-operators simply don’t know how to harness the power of the internet to market their businesses effectively, leaving new leads and revenue on the table.

Here are five of the most common mistakes that owner-operators make when implementing internet marketing so that you can avoid falling into the same traps.

1. Putting design before SEO. Too many companies separate the design and architecture of a website from SEO, but really these things should go hand-in-hand. By carefully researching search terms ahead of time, you can work to incorporate them into the basic structure of your site, which will make them much more likely to appear higher in searches.

2. Not considering its effect on the rest of your business. Any good internet marketing consultant will tell you that the web does not exist within a vacuum, nor do any of your individual online marketing efforts. If you make a change in one aspect of your business, it will affect the rest of the sales process. For instance, if you are attracting a new customer base, is your content and offerings geared to meet their needs? The key is using the data available to you to fine tune your overall business strategy.

3. Relying on low quality or not enough content. Search engines are getting smarter and smarter about weeding out sites that try to “cheat” the system by producing low quality content (such as keyword stuffing and spun articles), so it’s very important to make sure that yours is both unique and valuable. It’s also wise to keep creating new content, because preference is given to sites that update regularly.

4. Focusing only on getting more traffic - Of course, the number of visitors coming to your site is important, but if they’re not taking action, such as purchasing a product or signing up for your services, what benefit are you gaining? Ultimately, the internet is a lead generation tool. You need to ensure that you are getting the right kinds of leads and then converting those leads into sales.

5. Assuming it’s a one-time project and not a process. Many internet marketing consultants offer a quick, one-time fix, but this is a waste of all the data you are able to gather from your website. If instead you view internet marketing as an ongoing process, you can use it to learn what is happening with your company in real-time, allowing you to better meet changing needs and stay ahead of the competition. Beyond this, search engines continually update the way that they rank sites, so you need to stay on top of the latest internet marketing trends in order to stay near the top and help people to find you.

ABOUT SHEPARD MORROW

Shepard Morrow is the head of Location Traffic, an internet marketing and business consulting company in Pennington, New Jersey. He developed his unique approach over 15 years in the internet marketing industry and from his experience in running retail, wholesale, and internet businesses. By working directly with owner-operators, he develops business strategies that put the wealth of data available through internet marketing to use, enabling his clients to grow their companies and spend more time working on their business, not in their business. Learn more at http://www.LocationTraffic.com