Main Street ROI Reveals Top 3 Online Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Internet marketing is often faster, easier, and more affordable to implement and test than other media. It is recommended that small businesses invest in online marketing and make it a key component of their marketing. Unfortunately, it’s also really easy to lose money, too. Online marketing expert Pete Kennedy, managing partner of Main Street ROI, has outlined the three biggest mistakes made by local businesses:

Mistake #1: Relying Too Much on SEO

Perhaps the biggest mistake business owners make is relying too much on search engine optimization (SEO) – helping a website show up in search engines like Google when people are searching for the services offered.

Any business will be in an unstable position where Google controls its destiny if SEO is the main internet marketing strategy. It is possible to be ranked on the 1st page of Google and still lose money. According to Kennedy, a business needs more than rankings in order for an SEO campaign to be profitable:

“You need your prospective customer to do the following:
1) She sees your website in the search results
2) She clicks to visit your website
3) She contacts you
4) She becomes your customer”

One way to limit this risk is to “pre-test” an SEO campaign with PPC advertising for desired keywords. This will help project how much money can be made from SEO before investing months and thousands of dollars in achieving rankings.

Mistake #2: Not Tracking Advertising Properly

For business owners, it’s really easy to lose a lot of money quickly with PPC. One reason is because the clicks are getting more expensive all the time. Businesses waste money because of investment in keywords that don’t turn into prospects and customers.

Tracking involves knowing whether the people who visit the website from advertising end up contacting the business and becoming paying customers. Tracking these sales back to specific keywords determines which ones to keep investing in.

Mistake #3: Not Building a System

Creating a marketing system that can run independently and attract new customers every month will result in full benefits from online marketing.  According to Kennedy, one of the key components of a profitable small business online marketing system is email marketing:

“Used the right way, email marketing can help you turn more website visitors into prospects and customers, turn one-time customers into repeat customer and stimulate referrals. If you organize all the pieces of your online marketing (SEO, PPC, email, social media, and tracking/analytics) in just the right way, you’ll not only minimize your risk, you’ll create a system that generates reliable results for you month after month.”

About Main Street ROI

Main Street ROI provides online marketing training and tools for small businesses, including The Local SEO Formula, AdWords Success Formula, and Main Street Inner Circle. Since 2010, Main Street ROI has helped hundreds of small businesses create profitable online marketing campaigns. To learn more about Main Street ROI, visit http://www.mainstreetroi.com.

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Nikki Brown

Marketing Assistant

Main Street ROI

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