Top 100 Internet Marketing Mistakes

[hal]

I came back to look, to see if anyone had charged after me for saying use a marketer instead of designer. Not only do I not find that, but I find support my attitude! I found a wealth of great ideas to steal, too.

You have me cracking up! Example: Venividi, you said, "Sorry, I was so transported by my hate for these splash pages that I forgot to continue." You had me laughing so hard that I simply had to steal that line and pass it on to someone. We just pulled them away from Flash. All they did was to delete that page, and their second page became Home. They went from not even being found to having two listings in the first 20!

Jörn, you said, "I personally don't have a religion, after realizing that most of the wars in the world are about religions (or crude oil)." Yes, you are in Costa Rica, aren't you?! Oil is a religion. Ask any Texan! I'm in New England. It's not exactly a religion, here... more of a widely followed cult.

Anthony, "Nobody wants to see your photograph on your Website unless you're famous or naked." Oh, my sides hurt!

Stecindor, you ask, "What is wrong with using Frontpage?" Simple answer: Frontpage assumes you are a complete dunderhead. Detailed answer: The minute you get the least bit creative, Frontpage inserts errors in its frantic attempt to bring you back to dunderheadedness (is that a word?). That... and those other errors it inserts all on its lonesome. Dreamweaver advocates don't get off free, here. I have complaints against that one, too. <sigh> It boils down to -- if you're going to drive a four-door sedan to the grocery store, then automatic shift is OK (Jörn said it... "mile of code"). If you're going to venture out on the speedway, then you will want more personal control, and you will opt for a stick shift.

Jörn, "During these years we only received totally 3 negative comments on the black or dark backgrounds." Back in WWII, as I understand the story, we Americans decided to study where fighters got hit the most by anti-aircraft fire, so they could put more armor there. The study stopped in its tracks when a young British leftenant commented, "But these are the airplanes which made it back!" The question should be, how many potential customers were turned away by not being able to easily read what you have to say? Only your site logs will hold the real answer.

Virtualtraveller, "Image heavy pages are necessary for brochure sites, pages that are optimised to catch traffic but minimal on eye candy aren't going to convert to sales." Amen! SEO gets them there. Imagery holds them long enough to read the offer, but the artwork still won't sell. It is the offer, the offer, the offer. Meanwhile, "brochure sites" have no reason to live, other than to satisfy personal egos. (That should get a rise out of someone! <g>)

Great stuff, guys!

Hal

[janeth]

Anthony, "Nobody wants to see your photograph on your Website unless you're famous or naked." Oh, my sides hurt!

I disagree photos build trust and let you know who your dealing with. My sells droped after I removed my photo from Geeks On Steroids and right now we are working on a new site www.janethd.com everyone that has looked at it for me said I should add my photo, we are working on that right now.

Photos like logos build trust. People feel like if your willing to put your photo on your site your less likely to do someone wrong.

[crashingflwrgrl]

photos build trust and let you know who your dealing with

I agree. I see nothing wrong with having a photo of yourself on your website. It's kind of a way for your customers to "meet" you. Afterall, trust is what it's all about in on-line sales.

[shantanuo]

Even the professional websites make this mistake...
(My personal opinion)
Not making it very clear if the contents are totally free/ Free for registered users or for paid members. If it isn't enough, adding a "Paid" gif picture next to a link!

[webwoman]

I totally LOVE this thread! So much of this is what I try to drill into my clients' heads and from now on I will just refer them to this site and this thread.

Glad to be a member of such a group of experienced netrepreneurs. I was out of town and out of touch for nearly 3 weeks and hadn't checked in until it showed up in Google Alert in my email today.

There is soooo much about internet marketing that is so important. And, yes, some of these suggestions are maybe a little more about design, but you can't discount the impact design can have on your bottom line.

The interesting thing is that some of these seem to be a matter of preference, as I can say I have seen some pretty ugly sites that were insanely profitable (at least a couple of which I designed in my early years on the internet...who knew?).

What about the kinds of things people spend money on in thier push to market a website? Any things they should avoid like an orange sweatshirt with purple plaid shorts?

[Brian_uk]

The most common mistake, and the most frustrating (to me) is not including a contact phone number and an address. How many companies would even consider printing up a corporate brochure and decide not to included such details.

[Anissa]

Originally Posted by TrafficProducer

Try making a page with text hyperlinks where the lines of text are very close, on top of each other, together. Now add another couple of text hyperlinks between the lines.

Look at the HTML code Argh! It's all over the place, Blank links broken text* etc. and for the above you may find one line link merging with another.

* Example of broken text:-

today


Is the

first day
of the
week

( This may put search engines off listing you)

O_O
I don't know how to do it any other way. I always try to go back and check to make sure that the code isn't duped or anything, but I don't even know how to read the code. I have tried to learn, but it's confusing.

I must sound like an idiot. :(

[bcdxer]

thanks for sharing

[kms1167]

there is some great stuff in this thread. i think these things are just as important of internet marketing musts!

[Maggie1988007]

Top 100 net marketing mistakes.

1 - Using free hosting services with banners on top.

[Alex Williams]

the biggest mistake one can make is not building a list of subscribers when starting out. THE LIST is your biggest asset in your business. Without a list, you just have a website. With a list, you have a business with customers and buyers!

[Thomas Hobbes]

You might want to include here bad writing. Reading online is different from reading on print media. The eye behavior is different, we skip and scan and lack attention span. So we have to keep writing short. Here are some tips I follow when generating content:

* limit the word count, depending on the content
* use straight to the point sentences, avoiding long ones in the process
* use subtitles so the article is easy to scan
* avoid padding, clichés, and nonsense sentences to fill the page
* keep paragraphs short, so they're easy to scan
* print the short document and read it 'outside' of the web layout
* highlight or bold keywords so they're easy to spot in places they should appear

Of course if you have the budget to hire proofreaders, why not?

[ValeryCuh]

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

[Valeryrip]

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium? Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

[Valerylew]

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium? Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

[ValeryMaw]

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

[Valerytew]

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium? Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

[Thomas Hobbes]

Strange. A succession of posts with the same content and by forum members of almost the same name. I know link-building is a recommended way to boost traffic to one's site, and at the same time, earn people's respect in the niche you're working on, but spamming forums is not exactly aimed at benefiting forum members, who aim to help each other out.