Do You Make These Common Internet Marketing Mistakes?

By 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 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 a "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?

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 marketing professional 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 an awful sales tool. To solve this problem, hire a marketing professional to write the text for your website. We at the Geisheker Group specialize in writing powerful marketing text for websites. For a free no-obligation quote, call us at (920) 592-9595.

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 me 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.

By following these recommendations, your website will be a far more valuable sales and marketing tool.

If you need help designing or updating your website, The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm would love to help you. For a free quote, call us at (920) 592-9595 or visit http://www.geisheker.com.