4 Internet Marketing Mistakes Holding Your Company Back

When you promote your business online, your website is where all your marketing efforts start – and no one said it would be easy. Your site needs to be updated but not too trendy, educational but not boring, and aesthetically pleasing but not too artsy. It’s a hard line to walk, which is why we see clients coming to us with good intentions but bad internet marketing practices. Here are four of them you should look out for:

1. Your About page is boring

The About page on your company website is your opportunity to provide context to your customer. Go check yours. Is it a boring 5-sentence canned statement about how you strategize to induce technicalities? If so, you may be unintentionally scaring away your customers.

Rewrite it and be real. Share your story. Put a face and a name to your company and put a face and a name to the clients your company as helped. Establish authority and credibility by being unique, not by providing a dry summary of what your grandma thinks you do for a living.

2. You rarely update your blog

Frequent blog updates speak to two very important players in the business game: search engines and prospective customers. An active, industry-specific blog tells the world (also known as Google and your next client) that you’re listening to what’s happening in your industry, thinking about it, and applying it to your business. A nonexistent or quiet blog? It makes them both think you aren’t active.

3. When you do update your blog, it’s about your company

Would you go on a date with someone who only talked about themselves? That’s how your prospective clients feel about a blog that’s updated only with company news – and they quickly tune out the noise.

Your blog needs to be a place where you talk to prospective customers directly. What are they researching online? What information do they need? Talk about them and provide your unique spin. Show them that you’ll meet them halfway (or more) when it’s related to what you’re passionate about. (Heck, show them you’re passionate to begin with!) Useful, unique, and real content is the only thing that will turn your website into a valuable resource.

4. You’re pushing for too many conversions at once

The road to bad internet marketing strategies are paved with good intentions, right? For many companies, what starts off as good-natured optimization often turns into a conversion-palooza. There’s the email newsletter list because you want to build a list for your company. But then there’s the premium content downloads. And the blog. And the company social media pages. And maybe even one or two more things you came up with in an internal promotional meeting.

You need a structured, strategic marketing strategy with a singular purpose. Choose one conversion opportunity that means the most to your business and build your site around it. Whether that’s your email list, blog, or content offers, make it clear that that’s what you want prospective clients to do and watch it like a hawk. The rest of your site needs to be polished and put together, but the focus needs to be on the single most important conversion opportunity.

Don’t let your internet marketing tactics be an obstacle to the sale. The more clearly and naturally your website displays your company’s assets – that is, the people you have and the work you do – the more successful you’ll be in converting visitors to clients.

Next Steps:

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From the Backbone archive, first published May 22, 2014. How we help with leads and measurement →