The World Wide Web is an advertising battlefield – it is easy for your business to get lost amongst all the other websites vying for the attention of users. Having an online marketing strategy can mean the difference between your business booming or blowing up in your face.

This is a short guide of online marketing do’s and don’ts when it comes to marketing and advertising your business on the internet.

The Do’s and Don’ts

  • DO keyword optimize your website, by using your keyword a couple of times on the page and within your meta tags, for search engine optimization.
  • DON’T stuff your page with the same keyword over and over.  This will cause the search engine to look at your site with less favor and result in never ranking high.
  • DO create pages for your website that are quality unique content, relevant to your business.
  • DON’T use sub-par content.  Don’t use content that is found elsewhere on the internet.  This is bad for online marketing, as the search engines do not like it when websites use duplicate content.
  • DO set up accounts with social media outlets such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and others.  Link them to your website and interact on them with your connections.
  • DON’T just set up the social media accounts and do nothing but spam everyone with daily ads about your business.  This is a good way to turn your connections off and lose them altogether.
  • DO take the time to not only interact on social media but also pay it forward.  When a connection has a status you find valuable, share it with your list of connections.  This is beneficial online marketing and helps to encourage them to do the same for you.
  • DON’T just ignore your connections on social media.  If they share one of your statuses, take the time to thank them publically.  Good will begets good will.
  • DO make use of images to help describe the content on your web pages.  Optimize them by using title and description tags in the html of the image.  This helps the search engines to rank your images and is good for online marketing.
  • DON’T use images unless you either bought the license from a legitimate stock image website or took the photo yourself.  It is not okay to look at Google images and just take one to use.
  • DO update your website often, adding new pages helps to increase your search engine rankings as well as keep your visitors wanting to come back.  An excellent way to do this is using a blog.  Search engines love blogs.
  • DON’T just create a small site and let it sit there to go stagnant.  Online marketing success comes from having a site with fresh content.
  • DO offer a way for your website visitors to sign up for RSS updates.
  • DON’T just assume your visitors will remember to come back to your site if they never see an RSS or update sign up.

Follow these and you’ll be well on your way to a successful social media marketing campaign.