5 Major Mistakes Businesses Make Concerning Online Marketing

Avoiding pitfalls is vital in an online marketing strategy. Over the years Addison Marketing has seen many businesses struggle to succeed, and it is usually over several common issues. The following is a list of the top 5 most common mistakes we are regularly asked about and have seen.

Not having a web content strategy.
Despite all of the “Get listed #1 on Google with this new trick” emails in your inbox, Google has told all businesses many times that fresh new content continuously is the key to success. Google has backed that up with their algorithm updates. It is almost impossible to have good Google listings in any sort of competitive keyword without a multitude of great content. Without a plan to have content flowing from multiple sources and focusing on keywords, all of the magic tag manipulation will do nothing.

Not having traditional and online marketing efforts coordinated.
When you have an event in the real world, make sure your online marketing staff has good information, pictures and updates. Also, when you are running an online promotion, make sure your sales team and anyone else who touches the customer is educated and excited about informing customers about the promotion.

Not giving the campaign enough time.
Online marketing is a long term investment, similar to the stock market. Over time the return on your investment will trend upward, but if stopped too soon you might end up worse off than when you started. Before starting any SEO initiative, go in with an understanding that 6 months is the minimum before quality results start to show.

Alotting the correct budget amount to the campaign.
Business owners often are duped by low-priced SEO service providers promising them the world and delivering useless service. One time, Addison had a client approached by one of those competitors, desperately trying to convince them that meta keyword tags needed to have 150 keywords on every page to be successful.

All educated marketers know that meta keyword tags can actually cause more trouble for a site than good. If Google sees a keyword in that tag that is not listed on that page, it can, has, and will continue to blacklist the page.

Most lower tier SEO Providers are using information from older releases of the Google search algorithm (pre Panda, Penguin). Google has focused on content and social connectivity to rank its keyword searches now.

Unfortunately, many low-budget SEO providers are stuck in a pre-Penguin era of SEO, convincing business owners that low-quality spam tactics still work and taking their money while yielding negative results or none at all.

Not correctly assigning the workload.
So many times, we have seen the Secretary, the IT person, or a salesman thrust into the job of social media manager. While they all can have a small role to play in making sure your web identity is correct, the Google algorithm is extremely complex and ever changing. Having a strategy that can grow, and change as it does, as well as having professionals who are studying those changes on your team will keep your business from being left behind.