Internet Marketing Mistakes
The internet marketing world is very competitive, and even minor mistakes can discourage new internet marketers even before they manage to develop their first IM campaign.
This short guide details the most common internet mistakes and pitfalls that should be avoided if success is achieved.
Here are 25 internet marketing hazards waiting to trip an unsuspecting marketer:
1. Promises of overnight success: Otherwise known as ‘Get Rich Quick Schemes,’ these scams are prevalent in the internet marketing industry and await any unwitting buyer with open wallets…sorry, that should be armed. There is no such thing as instant riches – internet marketing takes hard work and patience.
2. Too many fingers in too many pies: Pick one niche and stick to it. Flitting from one project to the next is the downfall of many new internet marketers.
3. Overambitious keyword selection: Correct keyword research and targeting are essential. But attempting to rank for the most popular keywords is a failure waiting to happen. Look for long-tailed phrases and build up your authority.
4. Bad domain names: A domain name should ideally include your chosen keyword – search engines place great importance on URLs that contain keywords. Try to keep a domain name short and catchy. LoseWeightIn16DaysOrLessWith My SecretFormula.com is not a good domain name.
5. Free platforms: Blogger and WordPress.com may be OK for building little mini-sites for linking purposes, but never for the leading site. These free sites can be removed at any time – without reason – and you could lose all your hard work overnight.
6. PPC campaigns: Fine if you know what you are doing, but they can be money flushed down the toilet if you go in uninformed. There are many excellent free guides and tutorials for PPC marketing – read as many as you can before you pay $10 a click for a useless keyword.
7. Take action: By all means, learn the trade before starting a project but do become an inactive bookworm. No money was ever made by thinking about what to do, but then never actually doing it.
8. Mental overload: No matter what subject you choose to research – there will be hundreds of guides claiming to have the answer. It is far too easy to buy everything you see and realize you have no money left to perform any actual marketing.
9. Please the eye: Create a website that looks professional and doesn’t scream out scams or ‘hasn’t got a clue what they are talking about. Please keep it clean, clutter-free, and readable.
10. Sell quality: You are what you sell. Sell rubbish, and you will get demands for refunds and poor reputations. Pick your products and affiliate promotions wisely.
11. Trust is everything: If you want to make a career in internet marketing, look long-term and build your reputation by offering good products and sound advice.
12. Link farms and rings: Backlink cheats never prosper. Search engines are very good at spotting attempts to cheat, and link farms and rings will damage your website’s rank and reputation.
13. Adsense reliance: Adsense can be a nice little supplementary income – but that is it. Sites crammed full of Adsense are ugly and scream low-quality. You will never make a living off Adsense – no matter what you are told.
14. Using article spinning software: Quite simply, don’t do it. Spun articles look fake, read like a five-year-old has written them, and offer no quality content to a reader. Search engines will spot this and will not be happy.
15. Black hat: It is tempting to cheat, but the punishment for being caught is usually hefty. If you want to build a reputation and long-term success, stop being lazy – you will get rumbled.
16. Keyword research: The more effort you put in, the better you will prosper in the long run. Selecting the right keywords is a necessary process – if you skip this, you will not pass GO and collect $200. Keywords are the foundations of your marketing empire.
17. Split-testing: Every successful marketer split-tests. Find out which one of two ideas works best, then take the best one, tweak it, and split-test it again. This is a never-ending process and will mean the difference between good profits and huge profits.
18. Analytics: Know where your traffic is coming from, learn which advert converts and what campaign produces the best ROI, and why. Remember, this is your money, and you should care how well it is being spent – unless you’re rich, why have you not retired already?
19. Spamming: Whether this involves unsolicited email spamming or blasting forums and blogs with automated software, it is like an act of online terrorism. If you like being hated, banned, and called unprintable names, then carry on – but if you want to make real money and build a successful career, then never do this and rat out anyone you know that does!
20. Seize the moment: Failing to take advantage of special occasions can cost you much money. As an internet marketer, you should always be aware of special promotions that involve seasonal holidays and special occasions. Ignoring these is a mistake and probably idiotic.
21. Impatience: So you have created a website, and 100 people have visited but still no sale? This internet marketing does not work, and you have decided to quit. Bye then. If you have no patience to stay with it, maybe this is not the game for you. Internet marketing is not easy, and campaigns will take a while before they come to fruition. Suck it up and stop sulking – now it is time to see where you can tweak your campaign and ask yourself why no one has made a purchase yet.
22. Social media reliance: Twitter and Facebook can be handy marketing tools, but they too need nurturing and commitment. Far too many marketers think they can mass-add random followers and harass them with blatant sales pitches. This will never work – treat social media sites as you would well-structured email marketing campaigns. Take it slow: build trust, offer quality information and then start to pitch.
23. Naivety: Many internet marketers lie – sorry, but it is true. Believing everything you read will leave you broke. Check for reputable sources and always check credentials before buying products, agreeing to promote, or embarking on a joint venture.
24. Craigslist and Gumtree cheating: Many blackhat techniques suggest submitting fictitious ads onto these two sites and luring users to affiliate promotions (usually adult sites). Not only are these frowned upon and often result in bans, but they are also hardly the path taken by anyone looking to build a career based on trust.
25. Planning: Probably the biggest mistake a new internet marketer can make is a lack of planning. Whether this is planning a project from start to completion or failing to set short and long-term goals – a lack of planning is a recipe for disaster, and it is the horrid recipe your Aunt uses for those inedible teeth-breaking muffins.
By avoiding these 25 common mistakes that can be disastrous to any new internet marketing campaign, any marketer can improve their chances of success. Internet marketing is a very competitive marketplace, and even the slightest error can disadvantage any new project.
With some careful planning, a bit of marketing intuition, and adherence to these 25 IM pitfalls, any new marketer should improve their likelihood of creating a profitable campaign.
