10 Biggest Mistakes That Small Businesses Make With Their Internet Marketing
Topics: Affordable Website Design Tools, Affordable Website Design Software, Affordable Website Design Tips
Many small business owners feel overwhelmed when they face the daunting prospect of getting their online presence going. Everywhere you turn there’s an “expert” trying to tell you what you ought to do.
As a coach and consultant to entrepreneurs, I’ve watched too many of you go astray, so I’ve assembled my Top Ten List of Mistakes so you can avoid them!
1. Not Having A Website - Over 77% of all Americans are online. Your clients and contacts expect you to have a web presence. You’ve got to be there. At this point, you are conspicuous by your absence.
2. Spending Too Much Money On A Too Fancy Website - Most small businesses will continue to make money the same way they always have—they don’t plan to change their business model to focus on Internet sales.
Service practitioners may be able to attract prospects by their website, but they’ll still need to have a more personal contact to close the deal. And so you need a GOOD enough website at a moderate cost. Don’t go overboard.
3. Not Posting Your Phone Number - If someone is interested enough in your website to want to call you and you don’t post your phone number prominently (on every page if possible!), you will lose that contact opportunity.
4. Putting Up Your Website Up And Walking Away - This is not a one time thing. You’ve got to keep it up to date. Don’t use an expensive graphic designer you’ll be reluctant to call because he’s too expensive.
And don’t barter your site with a relative or friend: they won’t want to hear from you. Empower yourself by using a content management system to create your own simple site and you can update it yourself whenever you want.
5. Thinking A Blog Will Do The Same Thing As A Website - Blogs are online journals and require frequent care & feeding. If your clients want to check out your business, they need the standard kind of information traditionally contained on a website.
6. Not Using Professional Email At Your Domain - Once you have registered your URL, your address in cyberspace, then you must use email at that domain.
No more AOL, Yahoo or even your ISP. You can use the email address even before the website is built.
7. Not Using A Signature File With Your Email To Make It Easy To Contact You - Emails ARE Internet marketing. You should always include your full contact information block at the bottom of every email communication so its easy to reach out to you!
Include your full name, email address, phone number and URL. A slogan and logo are frosting on the cake.
8. Not Tracking Traffic - How will you know what your website is doing for you if you don’t measure and monitor usage? You can set up Google Analytics for free. Then remember to check it regularly and understand your site activity.
9. Not Optimizing For Search - If you built a website it is because you want people to find you, so make sure the site can be found on the Internet. You shouldn’t have to pay for a search program if your site has deep and accurate keywords, lots of links and updated content.
10. Confusing Internet With Sales And Marketing - Too many entrepreneurs think spending all their time building their Facebook or Linked In profile or writing a weekly ezine is all they need to do to create a viable business.
Internet marketing should be one of many paths you pursue as you build your business, don’t let the fun of playing online fool you into thinking all you need to do is sit back and watch the money roll in! You’ve still got to have a sound sales and marketing plan and work it every day!
Deborah Gallant is an internet marketing trainer, author and business coach that provides affordable website design & development tools for service professionals. Visit their website (www.WebPowerTools.com) for a free 30-day trial and internet marketing eBook.
Previous Articles Highlighter:
A Beginner's Guide To Web Hosting (1)
All websites are not designed the same way and I am sure you agree to this. Therefore, web hosting services are tailor-made to meet the different requirements. If your website is only five pages, the effort involved in hosting this is less when compared to hosting a website that has numerous pages.
Search Engine Marketing, Simply An Umbrella Term (2)
Search engine marketing would most probably cover the use of press releases to increase publicity for a company whilst also doing much to create an online profile of news and a greater level of exposure.
Remember To Ask The Right Questions When Choosing An Affiliate Program (3)
This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. How much time a customer stays on the tracking system is important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase.
How Should I Go About Choosing An Affiliate Program? (4)
Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet, or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.
Choosing The Right Affiliate Program Is An Art (5)
Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. After achieving the limit set out by an affiliate program payment is usually processed, or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.
How To Avoid The Google Sandbox (6)
These things work and help. Make use of them. It's impossible that if you follow these guidelines your website remains in the sandbox. One thing you should not do is get obsessed as to whether you are still in sandbox or not.
Online Holiday Shopping Makes Sense (7)
And with all of these batteries plus alkaline batteries and chargers for most devices, you can give the gift of power this holiday season. Bobby George is a technical consultant at LowCostBatteries.com.
How To Get A Landing Page Highly Ranked (8)
Doing so when you write content you automatically write it "perfect" instead of "robot written" with tons of keywords and so forth. It is a much better approach. So things to avoid are seo copywriting, keyword density and keyword prominence which is like keyword density more or less.
Google Released New Personalized Search Feature (9)
So first you need to have a Google account, which is free and then login. When going to Google you can customize the search results. You can move sites up or delete them - put notes next to sites or suggest sites to the results.
How To Get Infected By An Email Virus (10)
all link to Microsoft websites. Those links are safe, and the spammers (persons who send the spam email) put those links there so the email sounds more realistic, so more folks get tricked that it is an actual real, genuine email from Microsoft.
There Are Many Challenges On The Road To Home Based Business Success (11)
There are so many web sites that are just like yours. But if you want to have home based business success, you have to do something to separate yours from the rest.
Build Your Online Business With Integrity And Honesty (12)
People respect business owners who are honest and willing to tell the truth. It shows that you care about your prospects and are not willing to do anything just to get a sell.
Why Private Label Rights Is The Best Way To Get Your Own Product (13)
The answer that many use to solve this dilemma is the use of PLR EBooks. PLR stands for Private Label Rights. Private Label Rights means that once you purchase a copy of the PLR product, you then have the right to do almost anything with it, including putting your name on the product as the creator.
Blogging Guides - 6 Ways To Get Blog Traffic (14)
Write articles related to your blog topic and submit them to several article sites, like this one! In the resource box leave two links, one to the home page of your blog and another to your best posts.
Why Barack Obama Won The Election - And Why McCain Lost (15)
If you're a business owner, a salesperson, a prospective entrepreneur, or just about anyone who desire success in today's world, you need to understand that Internet Marketing is your ticket to success.
The Whereabouts Of Internet Marketing Strategy (16)
It must include both short-term and long-term marketing strategies for you to succeed. Your short-term Internet marketing strategy includes things that will temporarily help your online business get a sudden boost of traffic.
Kinds Of Blogs That Will Get You Famous (17)
By remembering these tips, you can be sure that you will be able to become famous just by blogging. In fact, you can even get so famous that you might even receive fan mails from thousands of people.
Now You Can Quit Your Job And Make Even More Money On Computer (18)
However in my smell i think you better start with free to join programs and begin your work at home Internet business. Work at home for free with the spider web selling system.
Web Site Design And Maintenance 101 (19)
Unfortunately, many people who need a website will pay for template access, and make a website that they like, but may be unattractive to their target audience, for example. A web site design and development company will know just what the website needs and does not need to keep it available, accessible, and attractive to all the right potential clients.
The Job Of A Professional Web Design Company (20)
Although there are many offerings of create your own website templates that are available, a professional web design company is full of experts that know exactly what is best for each client.
Newer Articles Highlighter:
Is It Too Late For You To Finally Get Your Business On The Internet! (1)
She logs on to the Internet and looks for a chiropractor in Des Moines. Ellen is frustrated by her teenager daughter's eating habits and mood swings. After the kids are in bed, she starts Googling - looking for a counselor, therapist or coach who specializes in adolescent girls with eating disorders.
How To Create A Landing Page For PPC Marketing (2)
Some of the benefits of these creators include options such as; building a sales page, promoting or selling any product, adding valuable content, reviews, articles, link and much more. Plus you can do other cool things to "reel" in potential sales such as adding videos, which most definitely allows your site to be unique in both content and quality.
What Are PhpBB Forums And Why Are They Considered Better? (3)
Topics: Free forum, forum hosting, phpbb forum, Free messageboard, message Forums come in all shapes, sizes, colors and assortments. Some of these forums are for fun, sports, tech, education, law, gaming, or even business reasons.
Forums For Free? You Gotta Be Kiddin' Me! (4)
It will only take a 2 minutes! Plus as said above they will utilize the very popular phpBB 3 board to attain the highest security measures and flexibility. You can select from more than 200 templates to custom-make your own forum.
Are Free Forums Really Worth It? (5)
What can get really confusing is the coding, and that's just not something you want to mess with if you haven't had experience with it before! Another nice thing about these forums is that they provide phpBB coding!
TV: The Way To Cost-Effectively Promote Your Book (6)
Now, if you're just promoting a book, traveling to different cities is not a good idea because the return on investment doesn't play in your favor. What I strongly recommend though is for authors to do as many local media appearances and book-signings as possible in the cities where they live.
How To Get Your Website At The Top Of Search Engines (7)
The use of the internet to attract customers and clients to either buy over the net or to simply make them aware of a business's existence is a necessity for modern life.
Landing Page Generators Really Can Benefit Your Affiliate Sales! (8)
You can easily create a sales page, promote or sell any product, add valuable content, reviews, articles, link and much more. Plus you can do other cool things to "reel" in potential sales such as adding videos, which allows your site to be unique in both content and quality.
Be Timid Forex Trading System (9)
If he/she doesn't trade it, why should you? If they do give you one, you'd like to see at least two years, it should be audited documentation and the fees should be disclosed or, preferably, for the results to be expressed net of fees.
Using Email Courses, Autoresponders, And Creativity To Draw In Traffic (10)
If you sell tools, offering tap dance courses via email isn't likely to bring you sales. For some businesses, this may seem like a pretty significant challenge. But with a little creativity you can draw your crowd in and watch the profits begin to build.
World's Best Internet Marketing Tools Are Cleverly Disguised (11)
Since all domains are under the same server, this may result to adverse consequences especially if one of the domains is allegedly spamming or behaving unscrupulously. Thus, it is wise that you have a separate IP address for each domain name.
Discover How To Increase Your Sales With Affiliate And Ad Tracking Scripts (12)
The amount of money that you can make from an affiliate program will all depend on which type of program you are participating in. As previously mentioned, a large number of businesses, including retail stores, operate their own affiliate program.
Create Effective Online Marketing Plans (13)
If you do not drive it then you are not going to make it to your destination. Your website needs to be informative about your product or service and it has to function well without being overly flashy.
A Detailed Look At Some Of The Most Popular Wordpress Plugins (14)
Wordpress Stats offers you a really simple way of retrieving data. I sometimes find that the more complex stat systems such as Google analytics or mint provide far too much information which can be confusing especially if you are new to blogging.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of An Ad Tracking Script (15)
If free customer service support is included, it should be outlined in the software description or software features section. The above mentioned advantages and disadvantages are important when determining whether or not you should purchase your own affiliate tracking software or do business with an affiliate networking company.
Website Design And Dreamweaver (16)
It has grown in leaps and bounds in the past two decades to become a phenomenon that we cannot live without. As such, few companies can afford to be without a website.
The Importance Of Words And Images In Leaflet Distribution (17)
It is one of the most cost effective, immediate and versatile ways a company can market its products or services. Unlike other methods of advertising and marketing like TV, billboard posters and glossy magazine adverts, leaflet distribution is relatively cheap and easy to do.
How Do You Hang Posters In A Display Booth (18)
But you have to bring attention to your display booth before people will take the time to stop by. Hanging posters in your display booth is one way to do that.
Internet Marketing Tip How To Drive Free Traffic With Forums (19)
What do I mean? If your targeting affiliate marketers make your sig speak out to them. In your sig file Give them the main benefit or unique selling point USP of your product or service.
Private Label E-books- Should You Buy Resell Rights Or Write Your Own (20)
Topics: private label rights, plr, plr products, resell rights, ebooks Gregg Hall is an author living on the Emerald Coast of Florida. Now that you know a little more about ebooks and resell rights be sure to get private label products by going to www.GreggsHD.com
Permalink to 10 Biggest Mistakes That Small Businesses Make With Their Internet Marketing