You’re in a tough spot.
You want to invest in online marketing, but you also want to make sure to invest wisely. Online marketing is just one portion of your operations.
There’s employees, equipment, supplies, utilities, rent and a long list of moving parts you have to account for.
You’ll invest in online marketing — SEO, PPC, and Content Marketing – if you believe it’ll provide a return on that investment.
We understand your concerns, but let us ask this…
Have you considered that you’re looking at the cost of online marketing the wrong way?
The Right Way to Think About Online Marketing
You run or manage a business.
We can use fancy words like search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, digital marketing, responsive design, analytics tracking and more, but your main concern is the bottom line.
Instead of thinking of how much online marketing costs, think of how much it’s costing you not to market your business effectively online. Even if you have a steady client base, good service, or healthy revenue, chances are you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t get the most out of your web presence.
Here’s something we can agree on…
We live in a digital world. Keeping up with the trends in the marketplace won’t be optional much longer. Deep down, you know this, but we have some facts and data to back our findings.
Are you making one of these 5 online marketing mistakes?
Online Marketing Mistake # 1 – Not Having and Search Engine Optimized Website
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a second.
He or she is looking for a product or service you offer.
What do they do next?
Do they grab the nearest phone book? Look in the newspaper?
No. Either on their desktop or phone, they go to searching for information online.
They go to google and enter the service or product you buy into the search box — both paid and organic.. When they see the results, do they find your business?
This is someone with either the curiosity or intent to buy your product or service.
From a logical standpoint, it seems like a no-brainer to display your business in front of people who are already looking for what you have to offer, right?
If the idea of putting your products and services in front of people who are actively searching for them isn’t enough, consider some startling pieces of data:
- 68 Percent of online experiences start with search engines
- 50 percent of users who perform a local search on their smartphone visit a physical store within one day
- 87% of smartphone owners use a search engine at least once per day
How many leads and customers are you missing out on by not having an optimized site?
For example:
Let’s say you sell a product that costs $100. Let’s also say an average of 500 people searches for that product in your area.
The number one result receives 33 percent of all traffic to a results page. If you were the number one spot, you’d have 165 leads coming in every month. If you converted 10 percent of those leads into sales, you’re looking at $1,650/month and roughly $20k /year of extra sales and that’s from an optimized page for one product. Think of numbers like those with multiple products and/or services.
This example illustrates what we’ve been able to do for clients in various industries. Do the math. Think about how putting your business in front of hundreds or thousands of people will do for your revenue.
Online Marketing Mistake # 2 – Not Blogging
If you thought the search engine optimization statistics were startling, take a look at the data behind the magic powers of blogging:
- Businesses who blog frequently have 434% more indexed pages than those who don’t.
- Businesses who blog receive 97% more site links than those who don’t
Why does blogging matter?
First, search engines want to know you’re regularly updating the content on your website. Search engines use this as a ranking factor because they want help users to find businesses who are proactive about keeping their site information up to date.
Second, people want to know you’re proactive about keeping your site information up to date. If they visit your blog to find you haven’t posted anything new since 2012, what will they think about your business?
We know what you’re thinking. You don’t have time to write a new blog post once a week or once a month.
That’s where MLT Group comes in. We provide blogging and other content marketing services to help you work on your business instead of in your business.
Online Marketing Mistake # 3 – Having a Slow Website
Did you know your website loading speed directly affects where your website ranks on Google and other search engines?
Think about it.
Doesn’t it annoy you when a site loads slowly? Haven’t you clicked away from a slow loading site to find a faster one?
Google uses certain measures as clues to how fast your site loads including:
- Bounce rate – A bounce means someone visits your site and leaves quickly. Slow loading websites cause bounces. Google penalizes your site for having a high bounce rate.
- Time spent on site – Google and the other engines also monitor how long people stay on your website. The longer they stay the better. Having too many bounces reduces the average time spent on your site.
According to a study analyzing 143,827 different websites, there is a significant drop off in site loading speed after the top five ranking results. What does this mean? To compete with other businesses trying to rank highly in Google, your site must be coded for fast loading speeds.
You can use this test to measure your site speed.
Wait a minute? This post is supposed to be about online marketing. Isn’t site speed more of a technical issue?
Your website is a marketing tool. If your marketing tool is running inefficiently, you have a marketing issue.
At MLT group, we use proven hosting technology and code all of our websites to load quickly. This creates a positive user experience and a site Google goes gaga for.
Online Marketing Mistake # 4 – Treating Your Site Content As An Afterthought
Words are so prevalent they almost go unnoticed.
You see them in emails, ads, on websites, and seemingly everywhere you turn.
What if we told you the words you used on your site could mean the difference between a sale and a customer clicking away from your site?
Far too often, business owners treat website content as an afterthought instead of a core piece of their marketing. This is a mistake because words have power.
The lead generation company Sumome cites over 400 ‘power words’ you can use to increase conversions.
Does our team use a few of these remarkably effective and authoritative psychological content techniques? Maybe 😉
The point is this — unless you’ve dove deeply into the untapped power of content marketing, you have no idea how powerful it can be for your business.
Think about it.
While your competitors use the same old cliches and buzzwords to describe their business — words every business uses — like quality, efficiency, and customer service, you can shock and awe your site visitors with stellar content.
Maybe you’re no Hemingway. No worries. We employ a tightly knit group of a few dozen copywriters with expert digital marketing knowledge who can help your business attract and engage customers.
Here’s how it works. You sit down with our head editor. She interviews you. We take your answers and spin them into content gold.
Noticing a trend here? Working with a smart digital marketing company fills the gap between the results you want and the methods needed to achieve them.
Online Marketing Mistake # 5 – Ignoring Design and Multi-Media
Maybe you have a website, but it’s — to put it nicely — outdated.
If you think you can just get around to redesigning your site, think again.
Remember those two important metrics we mentioned earlier — bounce rate and time on site? Your website design affects both metrics in various ways.
If your design isn’t appealing, some visitors will visit it and leave creating a bounce. If on the other hand, you have an attractive website, visitors will stay longer and increase your average time on site statistics.
In addition to having an appealing design, you can incorporate other multi-media elements to keep your visitors’ eyes glued to your website:
- Video – From commercials to product tutorials, video helps inform your users and gives them another option to learn more about your business aside from reading
- Infographics – Infographics provide an effective way to display your companies benefits. For example, sharing an infographic about the benefits of working for your company can increase employee referrals
- Images – Images on pages, in blog posts, and in photo galleries add another visually appealing element and can also show your product or services benefits. For example, you can display before and after pictures of a service you provide for homes.
The Bottom Line
Online marketing matters.
Investing in online marketing will provide the return you’re looking for as long as you do it the right way.
You have to work with a company you can trust. One who has intimate knowledge of the space.
How can you know who to trust? Take a look at the companies’ own online marketing.
In our case, we only have 500 + blog posts providing information on how to help businesses stand out on the web.
In fact, we’ve provided so much information you could use it on your own. Why give away the secret sauce?
Well, knowing what to do isn’t that hard. Doing it well is an entirely different story.
You’ve made it to the end of the post, which means you’re at least curious about how we can help.
Here’s what you do next…
Pick up the phone, like right now. Call 507-281-3490 and talk to us about custom web design, SEO, and more.
We’ll lay everything out for you so you know exactly where your money goes and what our services will do for you.
It’s that simple.