Many people make certain errors when launching themselves into the world of the internet. Below are just 5 of the most common.

1. Assuming Your Customers Behave Like You

Just because you go to the blogosphere before you buy any products or services doesn't mean that your target audience does. Conversely, you might be a 70-year-old dentist, and you think the Internet is just a fad. You need to think the way customers think and figure how they find businesses. No matter what your mom told you, in this case, don't be yourself.

2. Not Knowing Your Limits

You can create your own Web site, do search engine optimization (SEO), and run your own pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, but to do these things right, you need to spend an appropriate amount of time on them. That means that the five minutes you spend monthly on your PPC campaign may not be enough. You're wasting money that could just as well go to pay someone to take care of your local online advertising for you. Think hard about whether you'll make an ongoing commitment to optimizing your advertising campaigns. If not, maybe the best thing to do is go with the pros.

3. Assuming Web Site Aesthetics Equals Web Site Success

You may think all the frames, flash, and images you've put on your Web site look great. Unfortunately, that great stuff is all but invisible to the search engines. Search engines want only the facts. Not only that, they can't see the pretty pictures. So if your site is one big image, no search engine points for you.

4. Creating a Web Site That No One Visits

If you build it, they will come, right? Wrong. Just because you have a Web site doesn't mean anyone will go there. To get people to your site, you need to drive traffic -- whether that means using SEO, PPC, e-mails, banners or other tools. Give people a road and put them on a bus; then they will come.

5. Making It Difficult for Potential Customers to Contact You

You'd be surprised how many local business Web sites we see that don't even show the phone number. Or the contact information is buried deep down the Contact Us page. Your phone number (or however you want your potential customers to contact you) needs to be large and in charge on your Web site. Throw an easy-to-fill-out form on your page, too. That way potential customers who don't want to call still have a way to contact you.

There are many more things that we see, but these are the most prominent. If you don't have the time (or energy) to develop this kind of website then give us a call!

source:http://smb.informationweek.com/

Spread the word: Reading: Local Website

BY FC EXPERT BLOGGER DAVID LAVENDATue May 11, 2010

“I am baking cream cheese cupcakes this morning.” 

A colleague of mine tweeted this and got a message within a few minutes that said something like:

“Become a fan of Brand X cream cheese”

Now, wait a minute. Where did that come from?

Unfortunately, we can expect a lot more of this in the future. I say “unfortunately”, because this is clearly bad for business. At worst, it will erode the power of the social channel; at best, it will become the social equivalent of email spam – essentially transparent clutter in our inboxes.  With Facebook’s and Twitter’s new “publicity” policies, most people’s conversations are now exposed to those willing to pay for them. These are not “privacy” policies, because you automatically agree to share your information, unless you manually opt-out. First of all, how many people truly understand the issue, and second, how many know how to opt-out? Not many on either account.

Why is this bad for business?  To paraphrase Henry L. Stimson, a U.S. statesman, “nice people don’t read each other’s correspondence.” This means eavesdropping on conversations, or snooping on email, Twitter, or Facebook posts.  Since most people are not aware that they are being followed; they will be shocked and pissed when they find out.

So practice responsible social marketing. Here are some of my own guidelines:

1. Don’t connect with people beyond the context of the relationship – if people sign up on your website to get a monthly newsletter, don’t assume you can send them a message every week with your latest announcements.
2. Social outreach needs to be subtle – use Twitter and Facebook to create real communities where participants get value for participating. Pummeling prospects with ads or product pitches through these channels is inappropriate. Recently, I see more and more companies following me on Twitter. I don’t really think this is a good thing.
3. Respect people’s privacy online, even if you don’t have to. It is one thing to follow someone on Twitter, it is another thing to mine Tweets to build a prospect list. Just because I tweet that I am baking cream cheese muffins, doesn’t mean I want to be a cream cheese fan. This is really tricky, because this type of outreach can be a good way to find people who share your interests, but you need to be careful.  Err on the side of caution. The price of pissing people off is high when you are playing with your organization’s brand equity. Even if you don’t agree that this is inappropriate, others might. Would you like to see your “campaign” exposed in popular blogs as an example of inappropriate marketing behavior
4. “Social” means that interaction is two-way. Connect in ways that don’t trigger “fight or flight.” When you join a community, listen at first to understand the conversation, and then join the ongoing thread. Don’t try to divert the conversation to your agenda. How many times have you seen people join a LinkedIn group and immediately send out blasts offering their professional services?  This is such a turnoff. Would you actually hire someone like that?
5. Approach people in a respectful manner – how do you feel when someone on an airplane eavesdrops on your conversation, and then butts in with comments? It is no different online. Letting people know how you reached them, and providing a context for why they might be interested in interacting with you, is not only good manners, it is good business.

As always, I would like to hear about others’ experiences and hear more suggestions.

Spread the word: Reading: Five Rules for Responsible Social Marketing

I have been doing a lot of research lately on what it takes to cut it in this always growing, always changing on-line game called marketing. Most say to get on twitter, Facebook, and any other social media that you can find. But, is this enough? The short answer is no, just being there and calling on the field of dreams incantation, “If you build it, they will come” simply doesn't work. Below is a good list of blunders that on-line businesses tend to make, hopefully this will help you and get your marketing going faster.

1. If You Build It They Will Come. How will they know you have built it? Print your web address on anything and every thing that you market with. Use a signature when posting to blogs, replying to emails, etc that have your address prevalent.
2. Fear of Conversation. Just because you have a Facebook or a twitter account doesn't mean leads will fly at you. You have to build a conversation with people and get them to trust you.
3. Insular Thinking. Your target audience is not in your “bubble”. Reach out to people that are not in your circle to gain a better market stance.
4. Ignoring the Search Engines. This is one of those catch-22 things, you build a site for customers, NOT SEARCH ENGINES, but at the same time if the search engine can't see it what good is it? This is where avoiding flash and non-standard web languages where possible.
5. Being Stagnant. A website should be relevant to today or at least this month. Always update the site as often as possible, it you aren't updating people will think that your information is out of date and go somewhere else.
6. No clear conversion mechanism. Do you have your email/phone #/etc prevalent on all of your pages? The idea behind a website is to drive a sale!
7. No real follow up system for the leads a site generates. Do you answer inquiries? If not customers will go somewhere else.
8. Sites targeting product numbers and industry terms rather than what people are looking for. This goes hand in hand with #4. Don't build a site for search engines or for special cases, build it for your market.
9. Assigning Internet marketing tasks to the companies “tech person”. You know how to fix a computer you must know how to rank a website. WRONG!
10. Not doing quality link building and digital PR. Get involved with the community that you serve and begin building relationships that can give you reciprocal links, get the name out there, but be weary of purchased links and get it quick gimmicks. This takes time!!

For the full article see http://seoaware.com/2010/05/13/common-online-business-mistakes-michael-gray-alan-bleiweiss/

Spread the word: Reading: Top 10 online marketing mistakes