Top 10 Online Marketing Mistakes
10. Not answering emails or calls immediately
If you are not responding to online inquiries within 10 minutes they have probably started to look at your competitors website. This is way worse if you are not answering your phone. Most online shoppers that call you will not leave a message at all they will move on to the next phone number they find on google.
9. Trusting a company that sells phone books to do your online marketing
Many of the companies that used to sell yellow page ads are now trying to upset their clients to internet marketing. The reason is simple they know people look online for companies rather than in phonebooks these days, but they are not the best at it and have a lot of hidden costs you are probably not aware of. The last time i reviewed a clietns yellow page ads they were paying the yellow page company her pin Madison over $10 per click for a click that cost less than $2 on google – NOW THAT IS MARKUP.
8. Only showing up for your business name on Google
This is one of the most common mistakes business owners make. Yes, you should show up for your business name if you are have even mediocre SEO on your website, but that doesn’t mean you have good SEO in Madison. Our clients show up for their business names very quickly usually within the first week of having us optimize their website.
7. The “Page 1 Guarantee”
80 percent of the time this means that they are going to put your site into google Adwords with a very low page positioning. these positions cost nearly nothing and get less than 1% of the clicks. The other 20% of the time they will used black hat techniques, These techniques can get your sites ranking reduced or even banned by search engines like Google.
6. Wrong Target Market
lets assume your target market is in Madison, WI, targeting women 40 – 60 years old. Now lets see who you re really targeting. men 10-18 anywhere in the USA. This happens all the time and it costs businesses thousands of dollars every month they don’t target the right market.
5. Not properly managing your paid ads
Paid ads can drive a lot of business towards your business each month. If you are not managing them properly it could also cost you a lot, not just cause you are paying more than you need to for your ads but your ad may not be effectivly reaching the right people that actually would buy your product or service.
6. You think your only need a “Facebook Page”
I have heard this from so many small stare owners. Facebook is a website it is essentially like having a directory listing for your business with a little bit more flair.
5. No online presence
I speak to new business owners daily that don’t have a Facebook page, website, google+ page or anything other than a simple 4-5 page landing page with the local Yellow pages. That usually means that you are losing business to your competitors in a big way.
4. Not showing up in local search engine Results
This is as important to have properly done as it used to be to list your phone number in the phone book. Why, because it it is the new phone book. Think about it when you were out and about last weekend how many times did you look something up on your phone or ask for directions to a specific location? So what happens when they can’t find you right away? I don’t know what did you do??? Use the next closest location or next person down the list.
3. Not having a similar message across all platforms
Many business owners let one person do one thing and one do another and one do yet another, we know this doesn’t work you need all of these people talking and communicating or you as the business owner need to step in and communicate the important things so everyone on your team is on the same page. they all use the same wording, colors, catch phrases or slogans and they all run the same specials together at the same time. it is called Brand Congruency and by staying congruent your brand will be more recognizable by the potential customer.
2. Ugly or non-converting website
Having an ugly website can turn an online shopper into a run away customer in less than 2 seconds. if you site is not clean, easy to use and understand, with a good clean message they will probably stick around to learn a little more about your business. so now is your chance to convert the customer into a client how is your website doing that for you?
#1. Trying to DIY
You own a business that offers acme services or Acme products but you are not a marketing company. You may have good direction, be really smart, like really smart, but you time will always be more productive and more valuable doing what you specialize in. If you truly want to get a good ROI you need a professionally designed website, optimized and marketed by professionals.