What will your business’ online presence look like? Is it a blog? A web page? Maybe an e-commerce store? There are so many different answers and which one you choose depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Many business owners fall into the trap of choosing the wrong type of online marketing based on what they think will produce the best results for their business. But the fact is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to growing a business online. Each type of marketing has its perks and its drawbacks. Before you make your decision, you need to consider what will make your business unique and memorable, as well as profitable. In this article, we will discuss the most common mistakes made by businesses new to the online world and the reasons why each one may be problematic.
Having Too Many Clones of Your Existing Page or Blog
If you’re just starting out and you don’t have the budget or the technical know-how to create a high-quality site from scratch, one of the best ways to generate initial content is to buy a used template for your niche. Using a pre-made template means you don’t have to worry about the technical side of things. You just have to fill it with content and call it good.
But what happens when you run out of new content and you need something more? You either have to pay to have more content written for you or you have to create more content yourself. For the former, you may find cheaper options but they won’t necessarily be top-notch in quality. For the latter, you are better off investing in the best possible tools and materials to ensure you can produce your best work. Never, ever reuse content from one source. While it’s tempting to do this, it can bite you in the back later when you’re trying to promote your blog or website.
Not Diversifying Your Stream of Traffic
When you’re first getting started, it’s easy to fall into the trap of only focusing on the most popular methods of online marketing. These are usually the big social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, as well as search engines like Google. Once you’ve reached a certain level of success with these methods, you may find yourself bored of the same old thing and looking for new opportunities to grow your audience. This is where diversifying your streams of traffic comes in.
The most effective way to do this is to either create your own blog for which you will write regularly or, if you’re feeling creative, try your hand at online essay-writing. With an eye-catching title and a well-written body, you can effectively have your essay published on a prominent website or blog that is related to your niche. Once you’ve had your article published, you can use the same tactics to have your work cited by other websites and blogs in your niche. When you combine a number of these tactics, you can truly achieve diversification.
When you have an interest in writing, consider getting paid to write online for various websites and blogs in your niche. You don’t need to be limited to one blog or website, as the more the merrier when it comes to getting paid to write. Look for gigs on Upwork or Fiverr, or you can even create your own blog for which you can write regularly for free.
Not Having A Plan B
If you run out of content pretty quickly, don’t just sit back and wait for the traffic to come rolling in. Instead, create a plan B, just in case the plan A content isn’t working for you. You never know when something unexpected could happen that will leave you with no idea what to write about.
If you’re worried that something unexpected might happen and you’ll run out of ideas for content, consider starting a blog for which you write about topics that are unrelated to your niche. Not only will this give you more options for content, but it will allow you to explore new ideas and new angles which you may find intriguing. In addition to this, having a blog as a backup plan ensures you have content to fall back upon if needed. Some examples of blogs you may consider creating are a food blog or an arts and culture blog. These types of blogs often generate a massive amount of traffic and have the potential to grow your audience quickly.
Not Focusing On Enough Keywords
If you want your content to reach your target audience, you need to be certain you are using the right keywords in your content.
To determine the right keywords, you first need to determine your ideal buyer persona. This is a version of yourself, as a person, that represents the type of person you want to attract to your product or service. For example, if you sell art supplies, your buyer persona might be creative individuals who are interested in art. Now that you have your ideal buyer persona, you can use this to generate a list of keywords and phrases that are relevant to your product or service.
When you enter these keywords into your search engine, you will see a variety of results. These are all keywords and phrases that people are using to find content related to your product or service. When possible, you want to choose keywords that are both relevant and have the highest possible search rankings. This will make your content more discoverable by potential customers.
Not Testing Your Keywords
If you enter the keywords you generated earlier into your search engine, you will see a variety of results. These are all of the websites and blogs that are relevant to your product or service that were found using those keywords or phrases. If you want to see what your keywords actually looked like when searched on Google, you can use the Keyword planner tool built into Google Search.
From here, you can enter any of the keywords you see and see the search volume for those keywords. You can also repeat this for other search engines and platforms like Bing and Yandex. The more you test, the more you will discover. Don’t just enter a few keywords into your search engine and assume you will find what you’re looking for. Test as many keywords as possible and see how many searches each one gets you. Once you find the right combination of keywords, you’ll see a significant increase in your traffic and, ultimately, your business’ success.
Choosing The Wrong Niche
When you’re selecting a niche for your business, bear in mind that not all niches are created equal. Some are much more lucrative than others but, beyond this, each has its perks and its drawbacks. For instance, if you are looking to create an online store, a blog in the wellness niche might be a better choice than a blog in the beauty niche.
The perks of the wellness niche are that people are more likely to be searching for wellness content online and, as a business, you will have the opportunity to speak directly to this audience. If someone is searching for wellness content, they are probably already considering making changes to improve their quality of life and your product or service might just be the answer they’re looking for. In this way, your content may be able to generate some quick leads and you may see an increase in sales.
The drawback of the wellness niche is that it can be rather competitive. If your goal is to grow your business, you may want to consider dipping your toe into a less competitive niche first so that you can get your feet wet and see how things work before diving completely into a crowded field.
Choosing A Poorly Optimized Website
When you’re trying to generate traffic and leads to your website, the most important thing you can do is optimize your site for the search engines.
To do this, you first need to take a look at your website’s architecture. What does this mean? Your website’s architecture is the way your website is constructed, the way the individual pieces fit together and how the whole thing functions. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle. If you’ve ever watched a video on YouTube with over 15 million views, you may have seen the head icon over on the right side of the screen. Click on this icon and you’ll be brought to a menu from which you can choose between 4K/HD/SD videos or a slideshow of the most recent videos. What you want to do here is optimize your website so that it possesses all the necessary structural qualities to make the video play smoothly without any interruption or glitches.
Once this is done, you can work on your on-site content and design. When you’re first getting started, it may be a good idea to hire a digital marketer or an SEO company to help you with the optimization process so that you don’t have to worry about managing all the technical aspects of SEO yourself. In this way, you can focus on growing your business.