Avoiding online marketing mistakes

Marketing online has become the new frontier in the world of marketing. However, unlike traditional marketing, there are new factors that need to be considered, before you move your marketing plan, onto the web. While the benefits of marketing online are quite obvious (reaching a larger audience for a lower cost), there are also pitfalls that you will want to avoid. Many businesses have moved a great deal of marketing online only to find that they are struggling and don't know why. You may find that your customers are struggling to find you or become frustrated and give up, all from these simple mistakes. So if you are considering marketing your company, products and services, online, here is what you need to know about avoiding online marketing mistakes-

• Don't have a long URL-This is the most common mistake, businesses make when they begin marketing online. While you may be eager to get your businesses onto the web, keep in mind that if your site isn't easy to find, your customers are not going to spend a lot time trying. You need to focus on keeping your URL short and easy to remember. A long URL is both hard to remember, and can often be misspelled or typed wrong. In addition, you should also keep your URL similar if you are attaching a blog or anything else to your website. You want to make sure that you can just add blog, to help make it easier to find. Finally, if you are adding links for email, always have someone check to make sure the links are working. You should also include a hyperlink so that your customers will not have to copy and paste the link.
• Don't make it hard to browse-If your website is hard to browse, has missing links or broken pages, your customers will not stay around. There are simply too many easy to use sites that can attract them away. You want to have someone continually checking your website to make sure that it is complete and very user friendly. In addition, you must make sure that the content is updated on a regular basis, so that it is fresh both, for your customers and your search engines. You should also consider adding a search box, since it is much easier then having to go through your entire website.
• Don't add to many advertisements-If you load up your website, with lots of advertisements, for other companies, this can be frustrating and overwhelming to your customers. While you can make some money, from this tactic, your customers may be turned off to the heavy selling pitch. You want to make sure that any ads that you do post, are simple, clear and concise, and most of all not taking over your website.
• Don't create a username issue-You want to be able to capture the contact data, from your customers, however, if you insist that they sign up under a user name, this can create problems. A better solution is to let them use their email address. This way they won't have to create a unique user name that they will most likely forget and feel frustrated about, when they revisit your site. Best of all you are able to get their email address easily and quickly, in order to stay in touch with your customers.
• Don't send too many or too few emails-Part of the success with email marketing depends on timing. If you bombard your customers with to many emails, they will become overwhelmed and begin blocking you from their email. On the opposite side of things if you are not sending emails out at a regular basis, you risk your having your customers forget about you and take their business elsewhere.