Please note, these top 5 internet marketing mistakes are in no particular order – order shouldn’t matter either, as you should avoid all of them!

Mistake #1 – Expecting Overnight Riches

I hate to destroy a lot of excitement and hope right out of the gate but the first thing I always tell anyone trying to make a living in Internet Marketing,  “lower your expectations and be patient”.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not impossible to make a lot of money in a short period of time but 90% of Internet Marketers don’t make their first dollar within their first week of I.M.

How to avoid this mistake:  Understand that many people including the author of this article (that’s me!) make a comfortable living from I.M.  You just have to be patient and take it step by step.  A solid work ethic also helps!

Mistake #2 – Force-feeding Your Customers

If I had to pick one out of the 5 Internet Marketing mistakes to be the most common, it would this one – force-feeding your customers.  I see a lot of newcomers and even some big name marketers doing this.  They write their content with a lot of hype and false promises.  They lie, misdirect, and practically force you to click on their order buttons.

Sure, you might make a sale or two or even some good money.  But I can assure you that you’ve lost a lot of potential customers and loads of credibility – repeat customers are very important in a lot of niches and even where they aren’t, bullying your potential customers will hurt your conversions.

How to avoid this mistake:  Try and help your customers solve their problem and do it honestly.  It’s that simple. Don’t tell them that your product (or affiliate product) will solve all their problems if it doesn’t.  Build a relationship with them, truly try and help them and you will be surprised how people will force their wallet onto you and you won’t feel bad about taking it.

Mistake #3 – Trying  To Take The Free Road

This I.M. mistake is a bit of a funny one.  A lot of people getting into Internet Marketing make the mistake of buying every product in site that makes many false promises and plays on their emotions.  However, when it comes to investing in Web Hosting or buying a domain name they hesitate and try and find free solutions or end up buying a .info domain name rather than the .com.  It’s not your fault; we’ve all been there.

On a side note and something I could never understand – .info domains are usually around $2 and the .com domain with a coupon code (Google them when you use GoDaddy) will run you just over $7.  That’s $5 more and I can guarantee you the ROI is massive on that 5$ as a lot of people look at domain names and think .com is “official”.  (I guess this article just became the Top 6 I.M. mistakes)

How to avoid this mistake:  Muster up some cash and devote it towards giving your online marketing career a fair shot.  Pick up an extra part time job, offer to help a buddy out for some spare cash – just make sure you have a few hundred dollars ready to invest online.  Secondly, only invest in one training product and stick with it.  Many I.M. related products are rehashed information spun into different words that mean the same thing.

If you’re interested in what training product I swear by and recommend you will just have to wait until the end of this article as these are important mistakes to avoid and I don’t want to distract you.

Mistake #4 – Lack of Persistence

…work ethic, anti-laziness – whatever you want to call it.  Since most products sell you on easy overnight riches many people think they don’t have to work hard at Internet Marketing.  Well the reality is, you do.  Now I will say that it definitely gets better and easier as you move along.  Sites will eventually run themselves more or less and income will be easier to come by.  However, to get I.M. to work, you must work hard at it and be persistent.

How to avoid this mistake: Solve this mistake and you won’t need Internet Marketing to make your riches.

On a serious note, most people (even successful) will fall victim to this mistake.  You just have to find out what works for you. My next article will be on some tips to help you stay focused and on task, but until then, grind it out.

Mistake #5 – Not getting your hands dirty

…(figuratively speaking) and being scared of failure.  I know I said these are in no particular order but if I had to rank one the most important mistake to avoid it would be this one – so listen up!

What you will find when you first get into Internet Marketing is a little thing we like to call “Information Overload”.  With a good training resource you are going to be reading about everything under the sun and will often not know where to start!  Or even worse, be intimidated and quit right there.

Not to worry – how to avoid this mistake: Once you have spent a good few days reading over the material involved with marketing online, go for it with the intent you won’t make a dime and that you are doing what I like to call “self charity work”.  You might make a sale or two off your first site but more importantly you will learn so much more than if you spent your time reading loads more information.

Now, initially I wasn’t going to promote anything in this article as it was just meant to be nice and informative for you.  However, when I got to mistake number 3 I felt I should at least give you a recommendation of where to get good training so you will have a good foundation.  By no means do you need the following to be successful and it is only a recommendation – trying to avoid mistake two here.

My recommendation is joining the Wealthy Affiliate University or WA for short.  It’s where I started learning about I.M. 3 years ago and is where I am still a member to date.  The reason I swear by WA is simply because it’s the complete package.  Web Hosting is included, full training in every area of Internet Marketing from beginner to advanced, and most importantly live help from successful marketers such as myself through WA Live Chat (or forums if you are a little shy). Tip: If you decide you would like to take my advice, you should only need the Gold (cheaper) package when starting out and you can upgrade at any time.  Click here to join the Wealthy Affiliate University.

If you are a member of WA and don’t fall victim to any of the mistakes I’ve laid out in this article, the odds of success are extremely in your favor.

MediaorTech focuses on Multimedia and I.T. Consulting specializing in Online Media and Marketing.  Now you may be thinking that’s pretty broad, covering a wide range of things and you couldn’t be more right.  When I set out on my first mission, it was to teach people Internet Marketing without the Guru hype.  The idea was derailed over the summer with some bad luck and an increase in my school workload.

Well as of September I was offered a temporary full time “job” for a medium sized company just outside my hometown.  It was more of a consulting gig than anything.  When I got to their offices to talk business, I soon realized they needed more than just a web designer.

They were asking me to create:

• Offline print media
• Online media including flash videos and digital flyers
• E-blasts for their mailing lists
• Run their PPC campaigns
• On top of that manage their website.

A smile slowly grew from ear to ear.

As much as I wanted to look them in the eye and tell them that they are looking for super-man and pump up my own tires.  I kindly replied, “not a problem at all”.  When I saw the amount of work that was needed, I decided it was my chance to take the leap.

I dropped out of my last year at school after completing 5.  I registered for a business, got all my tax numbers and accounts in line and set the sails for my journey.

Since then business has been strong and with great results word of mouth travels fast.  In addition to managing companies “online bubble”, I’ve picked up many jobs creating websites for small business startups (mainly real-estate brokers).  That is how a landed on such a broad business, there was just so much I could do and with no work lined up, you’ll do whatever you can to keep the green flowing in.

Now that things are going smooth I am beginning to move back into the Online word as my main passion is in Internet Marketing and Teaching.  Slowly the I.T. work I do for small companies will fade out and MediaorTech will mold towards a full online solution for small to mid-sized businesses.

There are a few keys to success in Internet Marketing that you will read about in your IM journey but the one I am about to share with you here holds a lot of value and I am sure you’ve heard it before.

Stop “selling” to people, start “helping” them, stop “pushing” people and start “guiding” them.

Now I don’t mean stop Internet Marketing and go and volunteer at the local shelter (although that would be a kind gesture) but rather stop trying to force products onto people.

You may think this is obvious and that you don’t do it, but the reality of the fact is many people don’t understand the difference and it’s the major factor in their way of 1 sale a day to many a day.

Let’s Break It Down

The typical marketing process in a nutshell goes a little something like this:

1)   Pick a niche.

2)   Research the keywords in that niche.

3)   Find affiliate products for that niche.

4)   Build a website around those keywords/niche with On Page SEO in mind.

5)   Have a CTA/Sales/Landing page where you review or sell the product.

6)   Promote the H-E-Double Hockey Stick out of your site with Off Page SEO /PPC/Article/PRs etc.. (basically drive traffic).

Now if you noticed I “e-emphasized” (heard it first at robbeh.com) #5 which is an obvious step.  You can’t make money without some sort of offer page.  But here is where the problem lies.

These types of sites don’t do crazy well.  Sure, you will make sales…but you won’t make the most out of your traffic.  You may THINK you’re helping the user by pairing a search query with a related product but that’s not helping!

Let me give you a real life example to help bang my point home.

A woman is walking down the street in complete tears and bumps into a homeless man.  She apologizes and helps the man up. He proceeds to ask what’s wrong and the woman explains she is having trouble with her marriage.  The man proceeds to give information of what she should do and where to find this amazing relationship book for marriages on the rocks.

As you can see, the man has “helped” the woman by connecting her problem with a solution.  But how many woman would take this mans advice?? Sure, a few who are desperate for help but most would probably think there is very little value in advice coming from someone she doesn’t know, who doesn’t appear to be in a relationship or have any knowledge on the topic. In fact, some woman would probably ignore the man from the start and keep walking!

This is the typical website on the market to date.

Now, if that homeless man had simply introduced himself and maybe explained a relating story, offered to listen if she wanted to vent or ever needed someone to just seek an opinion and maybe asked her how things were going every time she passed him on the street.  The woman be much more likely to take the advice of the man because a relationship and trust was established.

The Reason Behind the Problem

People by nature don’t usually start a relationship (with a person or website) with 100% trust.  Trust is earned.  Trust is why brands are important to people.  If I wanted to sell a new facial cream to customers…it would take quite a lot of pre-selling to get that product in their homes.  Opera, Dr. Oz or other big names just say it on their show and stores can’t keep it on the shelves…that’s because they’ve already established major trust!

The Fix

When selling products as an Internet Marketer offer a lot of free and helpful content.  Prove to them you are actually there to help them.  If you are selling acne treatment, first give them some tips on what they should try before spending their hard earned money on products.  Then shows them if nothing is working to try a particular product.  If it’s a product you’ve tried, explain what worked for you.  Example: Maybe only using it at nights is all you need rather than twice a day.

Show the customer that you are there for them, not their wallet! Then you won’t have to take their wallet, they will give it to you.

As you can see this is where e-mail marketing can be so powerful.  On a website offering these helping resources can be difficult and be counter productive.  But if always think, how can I help this person out – you will see a drastic difference in your sales.

P.s. I will be returning soon (WA/Word/IM)

It’s www.socialmonkee.com (yes affiliate link – No purchase required but I explain the purpose of the link in the video)

The site is 100% totally free with the obvious opt-in.  No back-end up sells and the promised 25 backlinks per day to one URL of your choice!  That’s it! An easy to use plug-in too for us Firefox users!

Check it out!

http://www.socialmonkee.com

Please note since people wanted high quality video – it may take some time to load. Also note I will never do a screen capture of my blog and post it on my blog as it seem very confusing when you full screen it. Especially if you have a Mac Haha.

Enjoy some free link juice!

Please comment below on anything you feel could be improved on in the video!  Thanks!

Click in the bottom right corner for full screen!

What kind of Keyword density should my articles or blog posts have?

Now everyone has their own theory that seems to work for them and I am about to throw mine into the mix that should explain every theory.

So what percent keyword density should you aim for?

The answer is there really isn’t a number set in stone – now I know you’ve probably read that a million places and it is old news, and it sure is.

But here is the secret or how you should be setting up your keyword density.

Your targeted keyword needs to be the largest keyword density than the rest by at least .5%.  The .5% is Ball Park because it’s still a science under testing – but here is the theory behind it.

Keyword density isn’t used to DIRECTLY boost you up in the search engines.  What I mean by this is that if you were to try and rank for a keyword with a little bit of competition (top 5 sites have targeted backlinking) and all you did for SEO was the best keyword density, you would not rank number 1.  You might rank well, but not number one.

All keyword density is doing is telling Google what your site is targeting – its relevancy.

This is why a lot of percentages work.  Popular Google Sniper 2.0 (<- Yes that’s an affiliate link) claims even a keyword density of 1% or less gets you ranked with their SEO methods.  IM Guru Paul Prissick claims a keyword density of 4% is how he ranks over authority sites.  The rest fall somewhere between the 1-4% mark.

The thing is, these percentages work because they often end up being the leading keyword for your article or blog post, not because you hit 4% bang on or whatever percentage you follow.

Are you starting to catch my drift?

Example

Let’s take an example.  Let’s say you were marking for Sharpie Markers (first thing I saw on my desk).  You make a site about the best sharpie markers.  You have a keyword density for “best sharpie marker” of 2%.  However, you also have a keyword density of 2% for the keyword “black fine point”.  Google knows your site is between the two but still isn’t specific – 2% isn’t the magic number here as you would need 2.5% to show Google specifically what your site is about.

This is why having the following is considered good SEO:

• Keyword in an H1 tag – that’s your title, Google gives value since usually a title will explain what you are talking about.
• Keyword in H2 and H3 tag – not totally necessary as Google knows not every article will have subheadings, but further tells Google what the site is about.
• Keyword in Bold, Italics, or Underlined – if we are stressing our keyword in some form of format, the keyword must be relevant.
• Keyword in domain name – another pointer to tell Google what our site is about but not required.
• Keyword density greater than the rest – this is what we are talking about today.

All these methods above don’t get you rank – they give you relevancy!  They tell Google what the site is about!

Now when you backlink, you also tell Google what your site is about and if the anchor texts matches what Google has on file – BOOM you begin to shoot up in rank for your keyword.  Even if the anchor text isn’t your keyword – Google KNOWS that your site is about your keyword now and still gives you authority for your keyword.

In Conclusion…

Make sure you have a keyword density at least .5% above all other keywords.  Usually this means at least 1% Keyword density if you’re looking for guidelines.  Don’t go over 4% as Google will see this as stuffing and put you under the magnifying glass. Always remember,

On-page SEO is not what gets your page ranked or gives it juice but without it you will have a tough time ranking.

I hope this helps you better understand Keyword density and it’s purpose.  If you have an questions or comments please leave them below!

Robb

–Saturday Afternoon Update

We’ve all seen it before and it goes a little something like this!

“Would You Like To Learn How You Can Make Over $46 978.34 in Under Only 30 Days?!!”

…Bull Sh**! The funny thing is, enough people probably will buy that product in the next 30 days to prove the statement true!!

Now I know there are some people out there who have made more than that in a shorter period of time. These results almost ALWAYS come from a product launch or massive lists.  Either way it’s misleading and far from ethical.

If you didn’t watch the video above, I pretty much explain how there is only short term gain to lying and being unethical.  That you need to push the boundaries of being ethical but don’t cross them.  No one likes a boring ad or pitch but no one likes being lied to.  I show a Simpsons clip which inspired me to write this post, where the town is mislead to thinking the world was ending when it really was the grand opening of a new mega-mall.  I know, sounds weird – watch the video if you want to better understand.

What you’ll see is that the people of Springfield were only ever so slightly upset about being mislead but at the same time extremely drawn to the offer (opening of the mall).

The key in Internet Marketing is to stretch the truth, add a little hype, but don’t go overboard!  Doing this will keep your customer interested but not piss them off in the end. Keep this is mind:

The reader on the other end is a human being who also has feelings.  They could be looking for a solution to a very sensitive problem they have.  If you reach out to them and truly try to help they will be your customer for life. Screw them over and you will not only lose them as a customer but anyone who they might share their terrible experience with.

Hopefully you didn’t expect a huge post about every aspect of being ethical and unethical in Internet Marketing.  I am just trying to get rid of the so proclaimed gurus out there who get people into serious debt trouble while promising to help get them out.

At the end of the day use your judgment.  If you would refer the people you care about to the offer and can honestly say you wouldn’t feel guilty then you’re probably fine.  If not – rethink your strategy.