If you run a small to medium-sized business, you have likely been trying to handle your digital marketing in-house. There are numerous pitfalls to avoid, including digital marketing mistakes that can hinder your marketing budget’s ability to deliver a good return on investment (ROI).
If you feel like you could be doing better and are unsure why your ads and adjunct strategies are not producing the results you expected, we can help. This guide outlines key mistakes to avoid, including having an outdated website, neglecting SEO strategies, and mishandling PPC ads and keyword research.
Read on to discover these and other marketing errors that may be holding you back from the success you know you deserve.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Before we head into a description of the common digital marketing mistakes to avoid, let’s define the discipline itself.
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing, primarily operates through online channels. Leveraging these platforms and adopting an omnichannel strategy offers substantial opportunities to engage with your customer base effectively. While it can be a wise investment, navigating its complexities requires expert guidance to successfully meet your business objectives.
8 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes
Taking the time to stay current with emerging trends and understanding how they can be leveraged to boost sales and revenue is central to success online. Here we will unfold some of the most common marketing mistakes to avoid and guide you towards effective online marketing strategies that can work for your business.
1: No Website
If you don’t have a website, your business will become increasingly irrelevant over time. While you may have an embedded list of loyal customers who know your phone number and address, new business is likely to drop off to nearly zero if you have no online presence for your customers.
While it’s still valid to pop a print ad in your local or regional paper, most people will be reading that paper online, and if they can’t click straight through to your website, you will likely note a steady decline in new business as time passes. Most of your digital marketing efforts will revolve around your website, so if it’s old, outdated or nonexistent digital design, this is where you need to start. A great website builds trust, authority and brand awareness.
2: No SEO Strategy
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is vital to successful digital marketing. If you already have a website and haven’t invested in expert SEO, you may find yourself invisible online. By that, we mean not on the first page of Google. Did you know that some websites don’t even come up when you type the business name itself in the browser? If that’s where you are at, then you should speak with a website design and development agency immediately.
Having an online presence is the first step, having a highly visible presence is the ongoing goal and ranking first is the dream. With the right digital marketing team on your side, these goals are achievable.
3: Writing Your Own Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads
While it may seem simple enough to throw together a few lines of marketing copy for Facebook and Google Ads, it’s a much more complex discipline than you might realise. If you don’t know how to properly research and identify your target audience, or if you plan to run A/B testing and adjust your defined budget according to the monitoring results, it’s better not to try this marketing route. You can spend significant money and end up with little to no engagement if you are unable to define and refine your targeting from the outset.
4: Doing Your Own Keyword Research
While there are numerous online tools for keyword research, this task is more complicated than it appears. Did you know that around 67% of all clicks go to the first five ranked results that pop up when searchers type in their keywords? Optimising your website for the keywords that align with search intent is vital. If your conversion goal is to have someone download an educational PDF, the keyword is likely to be different to a goal that will direct browsers to your online form. Keywords for your industry will also shift over time, so updating your website with authoritative, fresh keyword content regularly is essential if you want to win at organic traffic.
5. Amateur Website Build
There has been a proliferation of template website options springing up across the last decade, and you are probably perfectly capable of throwing together a theme website build that looks pretty good. However, there are various factors both on and off the page that contribute to your website’s ranking, and a common digital marketing mistake businesses make is neglecting to invest in professional website design and development.
Neglecting UX & UI
User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are of paramount importance if you want to rank. While you or a friend or family member may have a great eye and some coding skills, it’s a specific discipline, and like anything, you get the best results from the person who has trained for the job. It pays to understand that a significant portion of your digital marketing strategy will involve directing people to your website, so getting this right from the outset is crucial.
6: No Social Media Strategy
So much of our information about businesses comes to us through social channels, and a less-than-coherent approach here can spell disaster for your brand. You need to create a long-range plan, set goals, and post at the optimal time of day and day of the week. You also need to pinpoint who your customers are before choosing which channels to invest time, energy, and money in.
There are precise ways to measure your results here, which allows you to pivot and reapproach. However, if you don’t start with a coherent brand representation and stick with it, you will muddy the waters. This creates consumer confusion and may mean missing out on opportunities to build awareness, loyalty, and authority.
7: Lack of Audience Research
Persona research is essential to your success. This is one of the key digital marketing mistakes to avoid. You need to narrow down who your audience is, where they spend their time online, and figure out how to segment your spend to catch them at the times they visit these places. There are numerous built-in measuring capabilities on digital marketing platforms; however, you need analytical skills to understand the digital insights and then use that information to adjust your strategy as necessary.
8. Inadequate Content Strategy
Your on-page SEO is vital to your website’s ranking. This is an ongoing process, and Google loves fresh content with updated keywords. You want to use your marketing content to position yourself as an industry leader, an authority on your product and service and a trusted and reputable business in your area. Location pages are crucial if you are looking to target customers in specific areas, and you should invest in blogs on a monthly basis if you are serious about rankings.
Solution? Use a Professional Digital Marketing Agency
If you’re managing digital marketing in-house for a small to medium-sized business, avoiding common pitfalls is crucial for maximising returns for your marketing budget.
If you are ready to rank, learn how expert guidance from The Web Guys can help refine your digital marketing efforts so you can focus on growing your business.
