What are the top 5(-10) online business mistakes you see business owners making?

I asked some people in the industry that I respect the question above and here are their answers…

Michael Gray – Twitter @Graywolf

1) If You Build It They Will Come: The people who work in SEO and internet marketing realize the world has changed a lot in the last 5 years, for small businesses this information hasn’t trickled down yet. They still think the act of having a 5-10 page brochure where website is going to bring traffic by the truckload, with credit cards in hand. The simple truth is you or someone on your staff needs to hustle to make things happen.

2) Fear of Conversation: A lot businesses won’t get involved in any form of social media, at all out of fear. Fear of looking bad, fear of what people will say about you, fear that things will be out of your control and out of your hands.

The simple fact is people are going to talk about you eventually whether you’re involved or not, it something you’re going to have to deal with. Right now Social Search offers a huge opportunity for traffic and visibility and people should take advantage of it.

3) Insular Thinking: A lot of businesses assume everyone is like them, and understands everything exactly the way they do. This can lead to consumers not understanding services or new product like Google Buzz that don’t match up with how the rest of the world really works. Companies need to get feedback from their customers or at the very least people who don’t “live” inside their bubble.

4) Ignoring the Search Engines: A lot of times a strong designer or developer can doom a project to failure. If the designer is building a monument to his ego (or portfolio) and has no understand or concern for making sure a search engine spider can crawl and digest the content of a website it’s doomed. Likewise a developer can design a site with so much functionality, that the architecture is too complex for a search engine spider to crawl effectively. That’s not to say everything has to be boring text like Craigslist. There’s a balance that exists when a website is visually pleasing, has the functionality that makes getting things done easy, and is understandable by search engines.

5) Being Stagnant: Inside your house or apartment, you probably change things around every so often. Maybe you repaint the living room, or move the love seat, or simply change the pictures/artwork on the walls, but you do something. Some organization are such a bureaucratic quagmire that it requires the approval of 6 departments to change a paragraph of text on a website. If that’s the case a redesign or visual spruce up is going to be impossible, and in a few years your website looks it’s living in 1999. A website is never done, it should always be a work in progress.

Dave Conklin – Twitter @ProspectMX

1. No clear conversion mechanism. In my opinion, unless you’re marketing a piece on your site for digital PR, you should have a form everywhere. We have proven with our clients over and over again that potential customers are not threatened by forms, and they will often fill them out as long as you’re giving them something in return. To fix it, think of something that you can give away for fee that is valuable to your potential customer and offer it in exchange for their name, phone and email.

2. No real followup system for the leads a site generates. Generating a lead is great… but the fact is… 75% of leads that are generated are only followed up with one time. And if the sales rep gets an answering machine or doesn’t get a return email… the lead is thrown away and someone else gets the business. Internet consumers are looking and researching much earlier in the process than the old fashioned people calling from the yellow pages. Therefore, they need to be on a followup system that will work even when you’re sales reps don’t. Monthly emails that are not selling your stuff but are offering value will be read and keep you at the top of the potential customers mind. When they’re ready… they’ll call you… not your competitor.

3. Sites targeting product numbers and industry terms rather than what people are looking for. If you look at the text on your site and you’re marketing terms and product numbers… STOP. Product numbers are great for people who already know you… but online marketing is mostly about meeting new people who have no idea who you are. Promote the phrases people are actually entering into the search engines and you just might meet somebody who never knew you existed.

4. Assigning internet marketing tasks to the companies “tech person” without understanding what her actual tech expertise is. CEO’s don’t understand that there are 100’s of different types of “geeks.” They often think that a geek is a geek and if you know how to fix a computer you must know how to rank a website. I even know many geeks who are tremendous with on-site SEO and have no idea how to go about quality link building. Have an expert look at your tech department and marketing department and see where improvements could be made on how those people are utilized.

5. Not doing quality link building and digital PR. Likely the biggest one. We have about 90 sites we market and maybe two or three of them had link building in place when we met them. Not one had quality link building in place. Have a blog on your website and fill it with really cool stuff. Not stuff that you like, but stuff that your potential customer would like. Or, stuff that people who will potentially link to your website would like. Then, tell them about it! Call them, send them emails, print it and mail it to them.. do something to let them know it’s there. You’ll get links… and the rankings will come. Well, it’s not quite that easy, but in the end you can have the greatest stuff in the world on your site… but if no one knows about it… there won’t be links… if there are no links… it won’t rank.. and if it doesn’t rank… it doesn’t do a thing for your business.

Alan Bleiweiss – Twitter @AlanBleiweiss

I think the answer to this question depends on the size of the business. For small business owners, I’d say:

1. Thinking they can succeed online with little or essentially no content depth.
2. Allowing fear of not understanding online marketing to prevent them from diving in
3. Not making their online presence a top priority either in terms of marketing budgets or effort needed
4. Gullibility as it relates to all the pie-in-the-sky goals that come from spammers and scammers
5. Not having a clear enough vision for their online goals

For larger business owners / managers:

1. Not establishing a cohesive online plan
2. Allowing 20th century committee process to interfere with the “turn-on-a-dime” decisions that an online presence requires
3. Trying to implement 20th century offline marketing methods to the online presence
4. Being too restrictive in their employee social media policies
5. Expecting IT staff to manage their online presence
6. Ignoring tremendous opportunities online in regard to customer service, product improvement, reputation management

8 Mistakes- Joshua Titsworth @JoshuaTitsworth

1. Taking SEO companies at face value –  When choosing an SEO company to use, don’t pick the first one you come across. Badges and certificates are meaningless and shouldn’t be a deciding factor. These can often be purchased from other companies after filling out an application. Do some research on the company, look on the BBB (Better Business Bureau) for any incidents that may have come up. Ask to see an example of previous work along with a list of keywords they have optimized clients for, then search to see if said clients appear. The more investigative you get, the more you’ll learn, the better choice you’ll have. This is an investment that can have impacting repercussions long after the relationship ends, choose wisely.

2. Only thinking about the #1 spot in the SERPS and not converting visitors to customers – Achieving a high ranking in the search results is always a good thing (as long as it’s for the term you want). But just getting to the top isn’t enough. Plenty of sites have high rankings, but that doesn’t mean they are generating a lot of income from visitors. Having actionable content that gets visitors to become customers is the second half of the equation and one that can work in sync with your current SEO strategies.

3. Too much reciprocal linking – I’ll be the first to say reciprocal linking can be beneficial. It helps compliment relationships and shows a connection. That said, too much of it won’t help your site very much in the search results. First, the link usually stands alone as the company name or simply the url, so the anchor text is lack luster. Secondly, since back links are somewhat of a “voting” system the reciprocal link cancels each other out somewhat. For every reciprocal link I have, I try to obtain two one-way direct backlinks.

4. Think that just having social media accounts is enough – I’ve heard too many times, “We have a Twitter and Facebook, but nothing is happening.” So I go look at the account to find no activity and a condensed section of contact information. If marketing on social media were easy everyone would do it, though it seems everyone is there are few who are doing it correctly. If you have social media accounts the questions to ask are:

• How active are we?
• Do we have any goals?

With all the information about best practices that is readily available on the Internet, not to mention most of the good social media sites have the information about how to use the site, there is no reason you shouldn’t be running a good campaign.

5. No patience – The most frustrating part about marketing online is that it takes time to see results. True, there are stories of people obtaining instant success, but these are few and far between. Once a strategy is in place, wait. Just because you have to wait doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. While you wait measure the results and compare to past experiments, make notes on what you are seeing so if you decide to make a change there are facts to base them on. Once a method is in place let it run for a period of time. Stopping and changing frequently because you aren’t seeing results right away is a bad idea.

6. Not making the most of current backlinks and tracking them – Backlinks are great, they are the one thing that can really help improve rankings. So when contemplating going the route of a link building campaign, stop. Take a look at the back links you already have to see what can be improved. If all the anchor text is old, spruce it up. Get it to match what you are currently optimizing for. While you are doing this I’d make a spreadsheet, if you don’t already, to keep track of the current links and the anchor text with each link.

7. Submitting a site to search engines every time a change takes place – Do you want to really frustrate your in-house or hired SEO firm? Re-submit your site every time a page is changed. This is not necessary! Doing this pulls your site from the normal crawl cycle the search engines already have you on. To figure out how frequently the cycles, go to a search engine and find your site, next click on the word ‘cached’ beside it. This is the latest version of your site the search engine has. It also has the date of when it was last checked. Do this at the beginning of the month, the middle and end. This will give you an estimate on how often it’s getting looked at. Want to be crawled more frequently? Keep adding content and changing it more frequently. The search engines are smart enough to pick up on this and will adjust the crawl frequency accordingly.

8. Focusing on the Meta Data – What used to be a major factor in search results is now at the low end of the ranking factors. While it is good to keep all of your meta data (title, description, keywords, etc.) up to date, devoting a lot of time and attention to isn’t ideal. Also stuffing keywords in these fields excessively could be seen as “spammy”. Time spent beefing up the keyword tag might be better spent developing content, building links and checking anchor text of backlinks, all of which are higher rated factors than meta data.

Some Lessons Business Can Learn by Samir Balwani @samirbalwani

Here are a few lessons to keep in mind when getting started online. These should save you from making a few common mistakes many business owners make:

Samir at Search & Social in deep thought.

Be Patient
When I first started, I was really excited to be doing something new. I had my website prepared and was ready to be rich. I waited and started getting frustrated; I wanted everything to happen right away. I quickly learned that patience is key; very little happens over night. If you want to really succeed, be prepared to work hard, for a long time.

Don’t Be That Guy
Because of the anonymity and consumer reach online, many business owners feel compelled to quickly push their product. However, users online are extremely wary of being sold to. Convince users you have their best interested in mind before trying to sell something. Don’t go straight for the sell; don’t be the Internet’s used car salesmen.

Invest in Online Marketing
This lesson actually encompasses two major mistakes many business owners make. Too many people refuse to spend money on their website and marketing strategy.

It’s important to invest in your website. Have one built that is both functional and professional. Pay for a good online logo and site design. Consider your website to be an extension of your store – you wouldn’t skimp on your store, so why are you taking shortcuts online?

Secondly, if you’re unsure about your online marketing – hire a consultant. Focus on what you do best, selling your product, let someone else worry about creating your web strategy. Don’t waste your time trying to keep up with online trends, technical requirements, and the next big thing. Find a good consultant you trust and have them help you.

Your Customers Know Best
Stop assuming you know what’s best. Test and measure everything online. Those colors that you like, might be the most obnoxious things to your customers. Let them tell you what they want. Use surveys, A+B testing, and analytics to figure out what your customers want and deliver them just that. Don’t let your personal bias drive your customers away.

Stop Searching for the Magic Bullet
The magic bullet doesn’t exist. There is no single way to be successful online. You can’t just wake up tomorrow and be rich. It takes a lot of hard work, energy, and ingenuity. Those that are successful dedicate a lot of time to it and work tirelessly. If you’re smart and dedicated, you’ll find a way to make your online business work.

These are SMART men you should listen to!

I want to thank Michael, Alan, Dave, Samir and Joshua for contributing your great thoughts! You can click on their names above and reach their sites. I think it is great for business owners to get information like this from 5 very smart and respected people in the industry. Everyone has different opinions, but many are so similar. Business owners, take notes and review your online marketing strategies. Are they working or are they not?

I have some quick mistakes I see often:

1. Assuming that getting something for cheap has value.
2. Assuming that yellow page online marketing is all you need.
3. Assuming that no one will say anything bad about you online.
4. Assuming that blogs are for geeks or jobless people. A blog can make all the difference in the world for a business.
5. Assuming that everyone that offers SEO is actually good at it.
6. Thinking only about traffic and not conversion!
7. Not using analytical data, PPC data, and Social Media data to determine what is and is not working for the business.
8. Not trying to track online conversions!
9. Creating a Facebook business page and then leaving it there. Hire someone that knows what to do.
10. Not considering that an old, badly-coded website is hurting them from both a search engine and potential customer perspective.

Melissa Fach – SEO Aware