Do You Make These Terrible Internet Marketing
Mistakes?
Peter Geisheker
I have been involved in Internet marketing since the
world-wide-web began and I consider myself to be an Internet
marketing expert. From my experience helping clients build
successful websites, I have learned what works and what does
not work when selling on the Internet. To help you avoid costly
mistakes, I have listed what I have found to be the biggest
Internet marketing mistakes.
Mistake 1: Using too much Flash. If your website is one big
Flash presentation, you are making a huge mistake! Why? Because
consumers go to your website to seek information, not to watch
an "I'm so cool" Flash presentation. Ask yourself, when you go
to a website, do you sit there and watch their ego-building
Flash presentation or do you click the "skip flash" link to get
to the real information? If you are like most people, you click
the "skip flash intro" link as quickly as you can find it.
Another major problem with Flash is that it is only
"interesting" the first time a visitor goes to your website. If
they actually return to your website, they will do everything
they can to skip your Flash presentation so they can quickly
get to the information they want. In my experience NOTHING
kills Internet sales more than Flash. That is why you almost
never see the world's top websites like Google, AOL, MSN, and
Yahoo using Flash as the basis for their web pages. If you are
making this mistake, get rid of the Flash immediately and make
your website a valuable source of information, because that is
what consumers want.
Mistake 2: Letting your webmaster write the text for your
website. This is another huge mistake that companies make. On
nearly a daily basis I get a call from a company that has spent
a fortune building a website and they cannot understand why they
are not generating any sales. My first question is, "who wrote
the text for your website?" In nearly every case they tell me
their webmaster wrote it.
Why is it a mistake to have your webmaster write your website
marketing text? Here is a hint: webmasters are programmers, NOT
a professional marketing copywriter who know how to write text
that sells. If you want your website to generate sales, you
must hire a person who is an excellent copywriter and knows how
to write words that make people want to buy! Would you hire your
webmaster to write a display advertisement for you? Of course
not! Then why on earth would you allow them to write the text
for your website? By having your webmaster write the text for
your website, you are ensuring your website will be a poor
sales tool. To solve this problem, hire a professional
marketing copywriter to write the text for your website.
Mistake 3: Making your website hard to navigate. Have you ever
been to a website where you have to click on various generic
graphics or parts of a flash picture to try and find a link to
the information you are looking for? Why on earth do companies
do this? It is not fun, it is not clever, it is STUPID AND
ANNOYING! When designing your website's navigation (links to
information) use the acronym K.I.S.S., which stands for KEEP IT
SIMPLE STUPID! Simple sells. Complex does not. If your webmaster
tries to sell you on using parts of a Flash picture for links or
some other complex navigation system, FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!
Mistake 4: Not having a telephone number on your website.
People rarely trust companies that do not have a telephone
number. I certainly don't. If I am considering buying a product
from a website and they do not have a telephone number, I don't
buy. And I know others feel the same way. For example, I have
had several clients hire to develop their marketing program
because I had a telephone number on my website and the other
marketing consultant websites they were looking at did not.
Therefore, if you want customers to buy from you, make it easy
for them to contact you by having a telephone number on your
website. In fact, you should have your telephone number on
EVERY page of your website. If you want to make sales on the
Internet, make it easy for your customers to buy.
About The Author: Peter Geisheker is President and CEO of The
Geisheker Group, Inc., a no-nonsense marketing firm that
specializes in developing results-driven marketing programs to
help companies attract new customers and increase profits. For
more information, please visit
http://www.geisheker.com or call
(920) 884-9041.
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