For an online business venture, there is no limit to your creativity in what you can do, just as there is an absolutely large barrier on what you must not do if you wish to expand. Many businesses today still do a lot of things that might probably shift them on the bad end of the pole. It might be their marketing strategies, online branding or value proposition. Whatever it may be, there are business owners who fail to capture the willingness of their customers’ to buy or avail of their product or service.

Some of the worst things your company is prone to do are:

1. …Not Focusing on Your Branding

Many small online businesses want to target specific keywords, thinking that they get most of the market if they rank on them. However, they fail to realize that focusing on your keywords and letting your branding go is a definite NO when it comes to online marketing. Sure, keywords are important, but think about this: Isn’t it better when people don’t need to search for a keyword anymore and just go straight for your website, because they know that your brand provides what they are looking for?

Bro Tip: When targeting keywords, use long tail keyword phrases with your brand included. If you are, let’s say, a company that provides car rentals, instead of just focusing on the keyword “cheap car rentals,” try making it “putyourcompanynamehere.com’s cheap car rentals” and incorporate it on a sentence that makes sense to readers. That way, you hit two birds with one stone: you got your keyword, and the reader knows it’s from your company.

2. …Not Showing a Sensible Website to Your Would-Be and Existing Customers

Let’s face it: nobody likes to stay on a crappy website, even if you provide a service that is worthwhile. A site’s dwell time (time spent, bounce rate, page views) affects ranking a lot, and not providing a user-friendly/user-engaging website is a major letdown, no matter what amazing thing you offer. So if you want to lose current customers or scare off new ones, then please continue focusing solely on ads, having a poor web design and having an overall confusing website.

Bro Tip: For your web design, use colors that attract your target audience, and make it a point that your color scheme is soothing for your audience’s eyes. KISSmetrics provided an excellent infographic on color schemes affecting purchase. Content-wise, make content that is actually worth reading. People appreciate snippets of descriptions on your product pages, or an easy explanation of what your service is. Also, do proper internal linking on your pages. Put your categories in place, link one page to another with related content.

Chew on these two marketing don’ts and come back tomorrow for tips 3, 4 and 5!