The internet is one tool that can be used for marketing purposes and why not there are over 2.9 Billion people that use the internet. Let me write that out over 2,900,000,000 people that use the internet. That is one big market just waiting and hungry for your products or services. Marketing on the internet is one thing and achieving effectiveness in this, is another thing altogether. What this implies is the fact that you need to identify some of the potential problems that will make you fail. If you avoid them it will help you get the most success. After all we all want to be successful. It is however, varied depending on the person’s own definition of success. Without further ado, here are the top 10 internet marketing mistakes that you do not want to be doing:
10. Poor partnering
Violation of rules and regulations that have been laid down including what is known as the CAN-SPAM act is possible through affiliate programs and co-registration by spyware companies and spammers in some cases. These issues have become rampart nowadays and to protect yourself, take time to analyze every potential partner you come across closely, before engaging them. After all, if they are promoting your product you could be held liable for their actions. The same is true if you are promoting their products.
9. Failing to market offline
It is a lie to believe that most of the people spend their entire day online. In reality, this is not actually the case; most people only spend a few hours a day online. If you fail to market your site offline you will lose some of your potential market. After all, at the end of the day you want to see traffic to your site rising steadily.
8. Spamming
Going forward you want to avoid anything that may place you on the wrong side of ISPs regulations. You can be termed a spammer easily if you choose to market through lists that have not been permitted. This is a temptation that has landed many people in difficult situations including; fines and making it impossible or difficult for them to market via email in future. Always maintain a clean record. I personally like the double opt in email forms. This ensures you stay out of hot water.
7. Outdated Details
Keep in mind the perception others have of you and your site. If the information on your site is outdated make sure you go back and update it. If you don’t update the information the general consensus of the readers will be that either no one pays attention to details on the site or they are not serious about adding value to the site anymore. People will then turn to other sites and you will lose that traffic you need to be successful.
6. Lack of promptness
Time is of the essence every time people take time to visit your site. Any downloads and required information should be made available fast and this can only happen if your server is efficient enough. Make sure you don’t have too many plugins. Simple, many times is better because it allows your website to load faster. Also even the search engines check your load time of the site. If it is too slow you will be penalized. It is wrong to keep viewers waiting and chances of losing potential customers as a result of delays are high.
5. Failure to collect email addresses
Online marketing is not a one one trick pony show. There are many ways to market online. One of the main things you hear internet marketers say is that they wished they started their email list sooner. The sooner you start the better off you will be. So get that lists started and it will help you with your overall success. Make sure you send out emails as well or there is no point in having a list.
4. Failure to Interact With Your Readers
When someone takes the time to leave you a comment on your website, make sure to interact with them. This is a great time to show your readers you are real and not a robot. I know some people just want to do the post it and forget it, but really you are losing potential customers. If you interact with them you can really help them and by helping them they will repay the favor by going to you for advice and buying what you recommend as long as you are being honest and helpful to them.
3. Technical Glitz
Some people just want to build the most amazing website that is visually appealing and has all these bells and whistles. It is not necessary and you might be blocking some people from seeing everything you have to offer. By this I mean your wonderful content gets lost in the glitz and glamour of all your tech savviness. Now for me this is not really an issue. I like the KISS method, Keep It Simple Stupid. Stupid would be referring to me. I am not a tech wizard by any stretch of the imagination. So I stick to WordPress and it makes it easy to create anything I need.
2. Failure to use Social marketing
There are tons of people online each and every day, playing with their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest accounts. Why not take advantage of that and use the social media. You could even have something go Viral. If that happens you will see a huge influx of traffic happen almost overnight.
1. Not Indexing Your Site
I don’t need to tell you but many people use search engines, yourself included and it will be a setback if your site is not listed in any of these. Of course Google is the number one search engine out there and in my case it produces over .80% of my organic traffic. But don’t forget about Yahoo, Bing, and many others that are out there. Make sure you index your site to more than just Google.
So there you have it my top 10 internet marketing mistakes. There are really many mistakes people make, but you can learn to avoid them and what the right things are to do at my top recommendation. Let me give you one more tip don’t try to do it alone. You can see all of my top recommendations here as well. Building an online business does not have to be difficult. You just need drive, help, and commitment and you too can become successful online.
Please let me know what things you feel I may have missed or other pitfalls below. If you have any questions please ask them as well.
Thanks, I really enjoyed your article. I have started with an email list already and I am busy learning about how to do email marketing so I am pleased to hear that it is best to get started as soon as possible.
I am also so happy to see your KISS point. I am not at ll tech savvy and I always worry that maybe my website is not very eye catching but now I am feeling a lot happier after reading your article.
Lynne,
Thank you for your kind words. I dont have all kinds of flash and glamour on any of my sites. I think people really appreciate making it clean. Not to mention many times when you load up with all kinds of tech on the site you actually slow the site down. This is of course bad because you will be penalized for your site being slower by the search engines. Also people will not want to wait for your site to load.
Marc
Hi Marc,
I really like your website. I have just starting out in my website building journey and find your articles to be helpful and informative. I really like the part of the article you wrote called “Failure to use Social marketing” I have never been big on social media myself but after reading your article I realized that my business needs me to be more social. I’m going to take your advice and give it a try.
Merceadez,
Thank you and I am happy you found the information useful. Social media is one of those things that you really need to be active in. Not all platforms work the same for all types of businesses. But it is important to stay on top of social media because it can be the cause of massive incoming traffic.
Marc
Great article , very good points.
Most people who are beginning with online marketing will likely make these mistakes out of ignorance so knowing beforehand it’s helpful for google not to punish you for spamming for example , and to spend more time creating content rather than having a good looking webiste thanks for the guide.
Alan,
Thanks for the comment and the compliment. I am very happy you found it useful.
Marc
Ok, Ill admit, I am guilty of 1, 2 and 5 lol. I’m not really sure how to get indexed with Bing and Yahoo though. Perhaps you know of a good tutorial about this?
I haven’t started collecting any emails either or using social media to promote my articles. These are great suggestions.
Thanks for the article Marc, it has really helped out!
Chris,
I think we all make mistakes, especially when we first get started. The important thing is to correct those mistakes as quickly as you can and not continue to make them.
As far as getting indexed on Yahoo and Bing here is a great tutorial on how to get indexed on Bing and Yahoo.
I hope that helps as well.
Please let me know if I can help you in any other way.
Marc
Thanks for this post about the top 10 Internet marketing mistakes to avoid Marc!
These are all really good tips, but I particularly like the tip “not collecting email addresses”
I don’t think a lot of online marketers spend enough time on this, and I believe you should start building an email list as soon as you can.
The power of this over the long-term is really massive!!
Thanks for the post 🙂
~John
John,
I think what most people are afraid of is the cost that some of the autoresponders can have. So people dont want to start a list until they start generating revenue to pay for the autoresponder.
Thanks for the comment and I am glad you found the information helpful.
Marc
Hello. Thanks for sharing this in depth list of marketing mistakes to avoid. The worst one for me, that I see online quite a lot is outdated material! Its one thing that Google themselves cant even get right. The creator of a website might write something that is relevant and perfectly true 3 or 4 years ago and whilst they never update the information, Google decide to rank it in one of the top spots for everyone to see. That seems to be happening more and more!
Andrew,
Thank you for the comment. And yes you are correct. As long as it is out there on the web and the site stays active it will stay there. It is best to keep your stuff up to date.
Marc
Hi
Thanks for sharing these vital marketing Mistakes.
Well, after working in this field for about 1 year, The biggest mistakes for me personally, which I am already working on
to improve, are :
#1 – Analysis Paralysis : I must admit that I fall victim to this sometimes too! 🙁
#2 – Not tracking analytics properly – it’s true that it is SO VITAL to do this, but most people don’t do this.
#3 – Selling Without solving – this is also vital, cause when you focus yourself on solving other people’s problems,
you’ll sell automatically later in the process in a lot of cases.
These mistakes are very costly, and can have huge impact. I regret I did these marketing mistakes, But Now, I am on my way
up and I hope sharing this will help many more.
Rubel,
Thank you for your comment. It really is important to do all of this. I am glad to see you have done some self analysis and found your weakness.
I think many people fall for the same ones you do. Tracking used to be my biggest downfall. If you dont know where you got a sale then you cant improve the process. I think many people dont want to take the time to track, but those are the people who wonder why they do well sometimes and terrible other times.
Selling without solving is something that is very difficult. You really need to build that trust.
I know I skipped the first one but then again I also did so on purpose. If you don’t actually write your stuff out you will never get a response to what you want.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.
Marc
Very informative article here I’ve been trying to make a decent income online for the past 8 months so I can quit my job I hate it. It’s absolutely terrible so I decided to try and do it on the Internet make money that is. So far I haven’t had any luck but after reading this I see that ive been doing it wrong the entire time. Hopefully I can use this post as a guide and help better my skills. Thanks wish me luck.
Heathguy,
Keep the faith, on average it takes 3 months to make their first dollar online. But some people take longer. The thing you need to remember is that your efforts are all cumulative. So what you do today builds on your site for tomorrow. Let me know if I can help you further.
Marc
I was always interested in making money online, however it took a lot of time till i found the correct way to do that. I made so many mistakes, thankfully i learned a lot as well. Those are some great tips, in my opinion the most important thing is to keep your website stable, and get indexed in google. Thanks for those amazing tips.
Thanks so much for your comment and your input. I appreciate it. Let me know if you need any help.
Marc