Every business owner dreams of having a web presence that attracts customers, generates high-quality leads, improves customer loyalty, increases brand awareness, improves brand reputation, and so on and so on. Unfortunately, most businesses do a poor job at marketing themselves online. Not only are they not doing the right things to achieve the aforementioned benefits, but many companies are doing things that are actually causing serious harm to their business.
One of the problems is that there are so many so-called internet marketing “gurus” telling people what to do, but there aren’t a lot of people offering advice on what not to do. It’s the mistakes that will undermine everything else you’re doing and cause damage to your business.
With that in mind, here are 7 digital marketing mistakes you need to avoid.
For the longest time, article marketing was one of the staples of SEO. You’d write an article, submit it to be published on a bunch of different directories, and enjoy the benefits of the backlinks that you got from all the articles. Well, Google eventually cracked down on this tactic, because their search results were getting clogged up with low quality, spammy content.
With Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, traditional article marketing was given a hasty death. Low-quality article directories have been hit hard by the Google algorithm updates, so it’s now become pointless and even detrimental to submit articles to them. If you’re still relying on traditional article marketing, you’re going to sabotage your efforts.
Now, it’s all about creating quality content and getting it published on reputable sites. Guest blogging has become a popular content marketing and link building strategy in recent years.
It doesn’t matter how well your website ranks in the search engines or how much traffic you’re able to drive to it through Facebook and Twitter; if your website doesn’t convert visitors into prospects and customers, it’s not doing its job. Your website should be helping your business grow. It should be driving visitors to take some sort of action, whether it be filling out a contact form or making a purchase now.
The thing is…people won’t take action unless you ask them to. If your landing pages don’t have clear, compelling calls to action, your visitors will do nothing at all. They won’t sign up for your email list. They won’t call you. They won’t buy your products. They’ll come and go without doing a single thing.
Every page on your site should have a strong call to action that funnels visitors toward conversion.
What do you want for your business? What are the goals of your digital marketing? How will you know if you’re doing the right things to achieve those goals?
Too many times, businesses jump from one digital marketing fad to the next, without having any clear direction. As a result, nothing really works, and a lot of money ends up getting waster. Stop chasing the latest, trendiest marketing tactics and start planning for the long-term.
Everyone wants to see results now, but that’s just not how online marketing works. You won’t climb to the top of the search results overnight, and you won’t build a quality, targeted following on Facebook or Twitter the second you open an account.
Well-planned marketing takes time to work. It could take several months before you start seeing the results of your hard work, but if you’re doing the right things, you will eventually see results. Don’t pull the plug too soon, and don’t get so caught up in the short-term results that you lose sight of the bigger picture.
Your website visitors shouldn’t come and go without leaving a trace. You should be capturing details about your visitors, such as their names and email addresses. Otherwise, they leave your website and they’re gone forever.
Have a contact form on your website where people can sign up for your email list, contact you for a free consultation, download a free eBook…anything. Don’t let your visitors get away!
Who are you trying to reach with your marketing? Who is your ideal customer? Describe them in detail. Don’t be broad and generic; be as specific as you can be. How old are they? How much money do they make? How do they talk? What are their likes and dislikes? Most importantly, what problem do they share that you can solve?
The more targeted your niche, the more effectively you’ll be able to market to them. When you settle for broad, generic marketing, you end up with a weak message that no audience responds to.
Data should guide every one of your digital marketing activities. You need to know who’s visiting your website, how they’re getting there, what they’re doing when they’re on your website, what pages get the best conversions, what pages are leaking visitors, which keywords drive the best traffic, and so on.
Study your analytics religiously, and use the information to improve your marketing.
How many of these 7 mistakes have you been making?
