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Five Common Web Marketing Myths Exposed
Myth #1: Build it and they will come
Traffic is everything. As thousands of webmasters have
already learned, you can have a catchy domain name and
an impeccably designed website already on the web. You
can even have it indexed by the search engines. However,
even after all that, a website may only get a handful of
visitors a day. After a few weeks of launching a
website, you may catch up to the fact that getting
people to your site takes a lot more hard work than you
expected. It will take many different approaches to make
your website known, and you’ll have to pull all the
stops: list your website in the major directories, have
it crawled by the search engines, create a signature
file for your emails, publish a free newsletter,
exchange links, stamp your domain name in your business
cards, stationary, and promotional material, advertise
in traditional media, etc. But above all, it will take
time, sometimes months or even years, before you’re able
to get significant traffic to your website, so prepare
to be patient and don’t give up.
Myth #2: We guarantee top placement with the
search engines
When it comes to search engines, nobody can guarantee
anything. The task of search engine optimization is a
lot like trying to predict the stock market. Just as no
stockbroker can guarantee you a 100% return on your
money (if he can, how come he still has to work?), no
search engine optimization “expert” can guarantee you a
top placement. Maybe he can position your website in a
top spot for keywords that nobody uses, but that
wouldn’t be of any help, would it? All you can do to try
to score big with the search engines is to follow some
basic guidelines, like putting your preferred keywords
in your page title, repeat them often in your web page
copy, and creating a site map link near the top of the
page so that the search engine can crawl all your pages.
Other than basic things like that, the only other
strategy that can significantly improve your ranking is
to get a lot of links to your site from authoritative
pages related to your topic. That means more hard and
time-consuming work, but you can only take out what you
put in, don’t you? So, if you want good results, stop
listening to the hype-meisters and get to work.
Myth #3: Make money while you sleep
How many times have you heard this?: “sign up for these
affiliate programs and your website will turn into a
lean, mean, cash machine: you’ll be making money in your
pajamas”. Yeah, right. First of all, affiliate
commissions are usually so small that the average
affiliate will only rake in ten or twenty bucks a month.
After all, what makes you think that people who see the
same links in thousands of other pages are going to
decide to make a purchase from your site? The only way
to make significant money is with a fairly unique
product that not a lot of sites sell. You may need to
invest time and money to research your target market,
find and get the rights to distribute a profitable
product, and then work hard to promote it. If you just
want to run a couple of affiliate links at your site,
that’s OK, but don’t quit your day job just yet.
Myth #4: Build an opt-in mailing list and become
rich
For years, we have heard web marketing gurus tell us
that we just have to publish a free ezine or newsletter,
collect our visitors’ emails and laugh all the way to
the bank. This probably originated years ago, when web
advertising was all the rage, and all we needed to do to
sell ad space was to get a few thousand subscribers.
Nowadays, even sites with hundreds of thousands of
visitors can’t rely on advertising revenue for survival.
Most ezines nowadays don’t even reach 1,000 subscribers,
and most of them won’t be interested in your offers. It
won’t take long for you to realize that to sell
something to your subscribers, first you have to
establish an almost personal relationship with them.
They will have to know you very well, and feel very
comfortable with you before they will be ready to
purchase anything. You will need to post your picture on
your website, give lots of testimonials, get positive
press coverage from important media outlets, have a
physical address (not just an email address), and, if
possible, conduct seminars so that your subscribers can
get to know you in person. Again, a lot of hard and
time-consuming work, but if you want the big payoff
there is no other way.
Myth #5: Give things away and they will buy
Most people that look for freebies, and receive
freebies, will always expect freebies. It is extremely
hard to turn freeloaders into paying customers,
especially on the web, where almost everything is free.
Instead of putting a lot of emphasis on your free gifts,
use your web space to explain very, very well your
product or service. Try to anticipate all your
customer’s needs, answer all their questions, point out
all your benefits, and, after that, include a short
contact form so that interested parties can contact you.
The time you spend following up with those prospects
will give you much better results than if you just rely
on showering a large pool of unqualified prospects with
free gifts and see what trickles down.
Bottom line, nothing worthwhile in life is easy, and
marketing on the web is not different. Uncover the
myths, filter out the hype, plan well, invest time and
work hard, and you’ll have a better chance of getting
results and being successful. |
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