ProfitBrite

Don't Make These 7 Deadly Marketing Mistakes

This article will look at seven of the most deadly mistakes that businesses make on their website:

Deadly Mistake #1

Your Call To Action Stinks...

The majority of business owners just forget this piece entirely, so if you already have a call to action on your website, congratulations, you're already a step ahead of the competition.

But what is a call to action many might ask?

The answer to that is very simple...

A call to action is simply a statement on your webpage telling your potential customers what to do.

Of course, you need to first decide exactly what action you want a visitor to take. For instance, do you want them to purchase from you right then, or should they contact you for a quote first?

The following are just some examples for getting visitors to fill out a form for a quote.

"Fill out your information below to receive a detailed, no-strings-attached, free quote from our customer services team."

"To receive a free quote from our sales team, simply fill out the form below and one of our representatives will contact you within 24 hours."

Tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do. The more detail, the better.

Bonus Tip: Focus on the benefits your visitor will have if they purchase your product or service. What will change in the way they live their life? Will their coffee be better in the morning? Will they save more money on taxes? How will their life be better because you showed up?

Deadly Mistake #2

Failing to Gather Email Addresses

A local business owner I know (let's call him Peter), had an average business with an average income but he was working about 60 hours per week. His company is a service business and he provides a great service for his clients. He's good at what he does.

Chatting to him at the beginning of this year, I discovered that Peter wasn't getting enough clients. Something that most business owners can relate to of course. Some times it was next to impossible for him to get clients through the door.

Much of Peter's business came from his website. He did very well getting his website into the search engines, but wasn't doing so well with converting those visitors into clients.

It wasn't until he started collecting email addresses through a simple form on his website that he really saw an increase in the number of clientele signed up on his books. Nowadays Peter's practice is packed. His schedule is full and he's been able to double the price he was charging. He was also able to cut back to about 30 hours a week, instead of the usual 60 he had been putting in on a regular basis.

By running a simple newsletter to share valuable and relevant information with your customers, you're going to keep buyers coming back and bringing new buyers through your doors.

Deadly Mistake #3

Failing To Optimize For Search Engines

Search engines like Google and Yahoo! are the closest things to best mates your website will ever have. So you have to make sure they play extra nicely together.

By following a few simple rules, you can have your website ranking well in the search results for popular terms in your local area.

Let's say you wanted to rank well for the search term, "Sydney lawyer". You'd want to make sure that you have that term on your main web page at least three times.

The best places to put search terms are in the title tag, headline, first and last line of content, sidebar and in any image ALT tags.

Some of these may sound like Greek to you, so talk with your web developer about them and make sure that your website is up to date with terms you'd like to rank for.

Deadly Mistake #4

Failure To Track Statistics

Yet another factor that is critical to any businesses online (or offline for that matter) success is tracking. You really need to keep track of where your leads and traffic come from so you can replicate and scale any success you have.

Google Analytics is a free tracking suite that will give you each and every statistic you could possibly need for tracking visitors on your website.

By watching closely what people do on your website, you'll be able to craft an experience that gets visitors to act in exactly the manner you'd like them to.

Going back to Mistake #1, if you want somebody to fill out a contact form, you need to find a way to get them to your contact page. Watch how people interact with your website, then use that as a cue for where to add links to the pages you want visitors to visit the most.

Another stat you need to watch is where people are coming from. Do most of your visitors come from a link the newspaper printed about your business in their online edition? If so, keep trying to get published. If most of your traffic comes from searches, do some optimization and get higher rankings for more terms.

Deadly Mistake #5

Not Using Longtail Keywords

Longtail keywords are a blessing to anybody who uses search engines for traffic. This goes for both paid traffic and organic traffic.

A longtail keyword is a key term that's more than three words long.

Examples would be...

� Parramatta plumbing specialists

� Family doctor in Sydney

� Remodeling companies near Castle Hill

Since you're probably a localized business, focus on keywords that use your city name. This way you're guaranteed to find people who are in your area looking for your services.

Deadly Mistake #6

Not Focusing On Benefits

People generally don't want to know the features of your product. New widgets don't matter to a buyer unless it has a dramatic impact on the product's performance.

If your product is 50% stronger than the leading option, focus on how much longer your product will last instead of the space age material it's made of.

Tell readers just how your product will help their life and you'll see an instant increase in sales.

Let's take some features and turn them into benefits.

� Feature: Your software uses SQL databases to store a users information.

Benefit: All information is encrypted and stored securely where hackers can never touch it - keeping your identity safe.

� Feature: The latest video uses new Blu-Ray technology.

Benefit: By using Blu-Ray, we've increased quality by 200%, making the instructions easier to see than ever. Now you'll be able to see each cut in exquisite detail just like it was right in front of you.

� Feature: Now included with a one-touch speed dial marker.

Benefit: Never enter another number into speed dial again - simply hit the * key after a phone call, and the number will automatically be entered into your speed dial.

Can you see just how powerful this will be for selling people on your products?

Deadly Mistake #7

Not Marketing Using Emotions

People buy on emotion and justify using logic. No matter the product or group you're selling to this is true.

Even if you're marketing to businesses you need to use emotion to sell. If, for example, you were selling to the accounting portion of fortune 500 companies, you should focus on what goes through the buyer's mind.

Most of those buyers have bosses they must go through before the sale is made. He'd likely need to be reassured that this decision would be a good one for his career in order to buy.

You're going to need to talk with potential buyers in order to find out what sort of emotions they go through when making a purchase. Most of the time they won't give you an answer straight-away, so you'll have to infer from his statements just what's going on in his mind.

Once you get this right though, you may never have to write another ad again...

Using emotional selling is by-far the most important thing you can do for your advertising. This goes for both online and offline sales.

As you can see, It's easily possible that by making a few small changes, you could see huge results in driving traffic to your local business website.

Karen is an Internet Marketing Consultant, Web Video Marketing and Social Media Expert. Visit =>> http://thomsonmarketingsolutions.com and discover several FREE guides that you can use today in marketing your local business. A FREE marketing consultation is offered to the first 15 requests each month.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Dont-Make-These-7-Deadly-Marketing-Mistakes&id=4453467] Don't Make These 7 Deadly Marketing Mistakes