Top 10 Internet Marketing Mistakes

Internet marketing can be very powerful, but it needs to be done right to be effective. Many Internet marketing rookies -- and even some veterans -- continue to make the same types of mistakes in their online marketing efforts. Here are a few marketing mistakes to watch out for and avoid.

1. Making viewers wait. People expect the Internet to be fast. If your server is slow or use graphics that take two minutes to download, you can say goodbye to your potential customers. To market yourself effectively, you need to put your information in front of people quickly. See Three Rules for Building Fast-Loading Web Pages for more information.
2. Technical arrogance. Do not assume that everyone has the latest version of a program to view your site. Not everyone has Macromedia's Flash installed, for example. Always have plain HTML and text versions at the ready for these users.
3. Not marketing offline. The goal is driving traffic to your site, but no one is online all the time. To successfully market an Internet site, you need market offline, too.
4. Not listing your site with search engines It is surprising how many people use search engines constantly but do not bother to get their sites listed on these very same search engines. You should manually list yourself with each search engine to make sure you are listed where you want to be. Since search engines are different, find out how to move up on their listings. For more information about search engine submission and optimization, see the Search Engine Optimization & Marketing section.
5. Not remaining timely. Far too many businesses let their Web sites go fallow. You need to stay current if you hope to attract customers. If you?ve got marketing material on your site about a Memorial Day special and it?s June 15th, you?re losing customers.