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8 rookie mistakes to avoid when it comes to running a business



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8 rookie mistakes to avoid when it comes to running a business

When starting out, I made a bunch of mistakes and I didn't just pack up my bags and quit, I learned from those mistakes.  I made mistakes such as using other peoples content as my own and not getting credit for it from the search engines.  I used spun content without knowing what I was actually doing and I even built 1,000,000 profile backlinks to my homepage thinking I would rank #1 for my top keywords, which never actually happened lol.

Below I'm going to go over 8 rookie mistakes that you might be doing, or might want to do, and you should avoid them.  Why?  Because they will only harm your business and make it more difficult for you to profit in the long run.



1. Start blogging for your visitors, they'll read your posts
While it's a great thing to put a blog on your website, if you're not posting to it at least once a week, you're not doing a good job as your business's "blogger".  You will need to learn how to optimize your content, and that means your blog posts too, so that you can increase your rankings within the search engines easily.  You'll need to promote your top read articles to bring people in and share them more than they already have been, if at all.


2. Leave your old blog posts alone
Many times I've read that people will go back and revise their content, which I don't get at all.  Your content has likely been indexed if it's been on your website for a while, so just leave it to age and gain traction in the rankings.  If you go about editing all of your old blog posts, you will definitely lose traffic and that means less sales for your service or product.

I understand that links will break, it happens, but that doesn't mean you need to edit the content on the page that link goes to. 

If you're writing up a prediction blog post and it ends up not panning out, don't go edit the post.  Write up a new post saying why your prediction didn't pan out and you can even link to the original theory 8 rookie mistakes to avoid when it comes to running a business


3. Add new content frequently to your website/blog
When it comes to writing up content frequently and being consistent to your niche, you don't have to re-invent the wheel when doing so.  Write up some nice content about your niche, product, review, etc. and make sure it's optimized for the search engines.  Do this a few times a week and your website will be seen as "Active" in the eyes of Google who will increase your rankings hopefully if you do everything right lol.


4. Don't collect emails if you don't plan on using them
Having a newsletter and sales funnel is a great thing for every website, but if you don't plan on using the emails for a while, don't think about collecting them.  People will usually forget that they signed up if they randomly get an email from you in 1, 2 or 6 months down the road.  This wouldn't be a bad thing if they couldn't so conveniently hit that "Spam" button and kill the email. 

Not sending out canned emails right away to people who signed up is like a death sentence to your list.  You will get a ton of unsubscribes after your first mailing if you wait too long to do it.  I would recommend setting up mailchimp and automating your first 5 to 10 emails so people get familiar with your newsletters.  Of course you'll have to write up the 5 or 10 emails and set them to go out to new sign ups, but that's pretty common and can be done in one sitting.


5. Be on as many platforms as possible, sort of
You'll need to be on as many platforms as possible, but not too many so that you get burned out.  You can be on facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, snapchat, etc.  But if you're being stretched too thing then you'll just get burned out or your marketing abilities won't work as well as they should. 

I like to focus on the platforms that have the majority of my target market on.  Usually I start off with Facebook because I can run paid ads and target my ideal candidates, but that costs some money because you're obviously doing a PPC campaign to bring in the traffic.


6. Social media platforms are FREE
Like I mentioned above, I like to use the PPC platforms on social media to bring in readers/buyers.  If you're not into that, you can always post quality content in order to bring people in through the search results after a user looks something up from the internal search bar in most of the platforms.

You'll of course need to be specific to your niche and website if you want to attract the right clientele, which isn't difficult.  If you're an automotive shop you don't want to talk about kittens even though they are adorable and that post would likely get a lot of likes lol.  Stick to what you know and what your business is about and you'll do just fine over time.


7. Share your content just a single time
This is one of the biggest mistakes I've seen done on almost every social media page out there.  Someone will post a link to their blog and if it doesn't get enough traction, they will do it again.  People will take the time to write up a great post on their website or blog and share it to their social platforms.  They think that because they did such an amazing job at it, others would love to see it multiple times, which isn't the case.  By sharing the same thing multiple times you will usually get people to un-like your page because you're just pushing the same material time and time again.


8. Don't get too personal
When you're with friends and family, you can get personal as long as it's not in a social atmosphere where your business is seen.  If you're getting personal with random commenters on a social media platform, you're playing with fire.  You can show your personal side, but don't get to involved with the conversation or you will get flamed for not giving out discounts or other benefits to those people.

Having common interests is a safe ground because you can talk about a sports team, fishing, a hobby of yours, etc. 




In Conclusion:
You can easily avoid these 8 common rookie mistakes when it comes to your business and marketing.  You just have to play it safe and know what you're doing before you actually do something that might harm your website or your rankings.  In the end, you will be better off taking it slow and reading through a few of the discussions here on SEOclerks.com in order to get a better understanding on what you should do when starting off 8 rookie mistakes to avoid when it comes to running a business


Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy


Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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Rumu
I think your tips are good. But I'll like it more if you had named it tips on making your business grow better. I think a lot of people already do this things, but sometimes it takes a little more.

I like the point on leaving or not tampring with your old post. It's a good point because people search every now and then for solutions. Something you posted 5 years ago might be a great lead for someone 10 years later. So it's good you picked on it.

I also love the the point on not getting too personal when making post or publishing an article. For instance, the media in general these days get too personal when putting out a report which seems like only one side gets the attention thereby shutting down or denying the other sides a chance to be heard.



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Authord
Well, he usually talks about growing your business, I will even say that it is the part he specializes upon. If you had been an ardent follower of his, you would have seen multiple threads and articles, where he shares useful tips and information that will help to grow ones's business and take them to greater heights.



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Rumu
It was just a suggestion. Do not take it personal. Am not discrediting or undermining his post in anyway. Am only saying It would have been more satisfying to me if he had use the term "grow". Read further and you'll notice that the last two of my paragraphs went on appreciating and even quoting two of his points which were the focal points of my comment.



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Corzhens
I have read a discussion on revising the old articles to remove the redundant words and the excessive keywords. Maybe the intention was to make the web page more influential in terms of search engine capability but I don’t relish the idea of altering old articles. For me, once you publish a content then it should remain that way forever otherwise you are tampering the quality and integrity of your site. Maybe that is the reason why I sometimes click on a link that is not present anymore and that broken link can really hurt the website.



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kgord
One again your content and advice in invaluable. Even people who have blogged for awhile certainly can get important information via your posts. So glad you are sharing them with us! It is helpful for many people I am certain.



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cmoneyspinner
1. Start blogging for your visitors, they'll read your posts
RE: Promote your top read articles? Besides Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest, do you have any other promotion suggestions? I tried a tool called Co-Promote. It was not effective at all. I try PLURK and LinkedIn, but only after I have exhausted other social sharing avenues. Do you have an opinion about Tumblr? Flipboard? Scoop.it?


2. Leave your old blog posts alone
Have to disagree. Maybe you don't need to but my old blog posts have broken links and the content usually needs updating. Also, some of my posts did not have images. I find that images do get a reader's attention. So I don't leave my old blog posts alone.

Also, sometimes I do sometimes write a new post and link back to the old one, explaining it.


3. Add new content frequently to your website/blog
Glad you can schedule posts. It's especially great for a day when you have a “burst of inspiration”. You do several of your write-ups in a day and can schedule the postings over the next few days or weeks.


4. Don't collect emails if you don't plan on using them
No problem. I don't collect eMails and don't have a mailing list. … Yet.


5. Be on as many platforms as possible, sort of
6. Social media platforms are FREE
I'm active on any social media platform that will let me sign up FREE.
Not only are they free to create a profile but to create business pages for you niches as well.



7. Share your content just a single time
I retweet my content. Hey! I'm sorry. They didn't see the first time!


8. Don't get too personal
Seems like it shouldn't have to be said, but good you said it anyway.



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overcast
I think collecting emails point is very important. It can open up a good options for the monetization in near future. So you can see that some of the social media options to help as well. I think social media ads do play a role when running business. Facebook ads are known to convert. Some of the points mentioned by OP are really good. It made me rethink on the things though.



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Authord
LOL, at number 7 though. I don't think it matters how many times you share your contents or re tweet them. But it advisable to check out the time a large number of your followers are mostly online, so you can be sharing your content at that said time, to help improve the visibility of the content to a large section of them. Without spamming or messing up your timeline.



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augusta
Nice idea there,Good content can be beaten any day any time.Blogging for visitors help one to draw visitors closer because some will read and leave their heartfelt comments especially if it in form of constructive criticism to help make the business better,sharing it to social media will also help to bring in even more visitors to the site and which in turn can bring in more profit and growth. Nice read.



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vinaya
sadly, I am doing some of these mistakes. I have not uploaded a new article on my blogs since a long time. Since there is no new content on my blogs, I am not getting enough visitors. I have also not updated my old blog posts. Since these blogs were published one or two years ago, and have not been updated, they losing search engine visibilities.
I think I am on too many social media platforms. Since I am on too many social media sites, I am not active every where.



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ColdFlameChris
Great post! I love every detail of it. This could really give you good tips on how to avoid mistakes in running a business. Thanks for sharing this wonderful post of yours. It can really help us a lot. Have a nice day! 8 rookie mistakes to avoid when it comes to running a business



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jpyy
As I've said in other posts, Facebook is free, but unless you pay, your post won't be seen by many, In fact, probably less than 3 percent of an audience, say a Facebook page or group one, will see it. In that case, it can be a real letdown to those not aware of the fact.

Anyway, what's the situation with other social media like Twitter or Instagram?



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Everett
Well being as I do not have a blog, I keep seeing posts about blogs and definitely thinking that I should have one. But I am not too entirely sure as to what I would be writing about. I feel that if I write blog posts, who is going to read them, and overall would I be wasting my time? Another site I go on to sell my PHP scripts has a blog, and has a blog view counter. They post often, and the counts for the viewed articles, even though the website is pretty popular (unsure if i can mention here so i wont), the blog is not really that successful. It's about less than 20 views per article, and they post on a weekly to biweekly frequency.

I do not want to be wasting my time when my visitors won't read a blog article. Now, what I have thought about is creating tutorials on how to code certain things but this has been done time and time again and I am not sure if my content would be of more value due to the fact that it probably won't get indexed within the first 10 pages of the search engines, and there are far more established websites that to do this already.



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kaka135
Thank you for sharing these and helping us to avoid those mistakes as a newbie. I have always been thinking if it's good to collect emails, and now I found out it's really a huge help by doing so. Email marketing is still very important, and many times I purchased things online because of these emails.



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Authord
Nice tips as usual, especially the number four, you really hit the nail at the head, many people end up collecting email list, just for collecting sake, I have been in such situation before. After setting up a site and posting an article, I just felt like collecting emails, so as to join in trend. Without any plan of using them. When I started making use of them, I was sure many drifted me to the spam section.
So it is an important thing to note, especially for newbies.



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overcast
I think some of the tips are really true. And the point about getting personal is true too. I have seen some of the marketers losing their sight with the things they have taken personal. And it can be really hard for many of them. I am sure you have seen this already in that context. You can see that cost of running business increases if the outsourcing is not done. So that's something to be considered as well. Many business don't think of it that way.



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Barida
Quite an an interesting article that is filled with words of wisdom. I have seen blogs where the owner always leave making of new articles for some weeks and that has made it tough for some of the members .



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vhinz
I'm just getting started and posting regularly is one of my problem. Need to learn more. I'm thankful that someone like you give tips for beginners in online business.



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Pixie06
Sometimes the visitors suggest me to write about specific topics. I am not well versed in all the topics and that's the reason I ask for other's help at times. Those days I am quite busy offline and I don't really have enough time to post on my blog. I write only once or twice per week. This number of visitors to my blog has reduced. If this trend continues I will hire a freelance writer. Advertising is equally important. I have advertised my blog on three different social networks.



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Everett
You are definitely missing out on an oppertunity if your blog audience wants you to write about certain topics and you are not following through. If your audience is requesting your input on other topics than what you're familiar with I can understand a lack of interest because you're not familiar but I would try to work out something.

However, if you decide to write topics that your audience wants to engage in, do not let them control your blog. Some people write just to give their readers what they want. Do not lose that initial spark that was there when you decided to create a blog.



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Corzhens
I also heard one blogger with that advice – not to revise the old blogs. Even if it’s the spelling or grammar, never modify the past blog because the blog is like a diary that you write in a diary book so it is not erasable. With the #8 – getting too personal – I agree that you need to maintain your distance and respect your privacy. Getting too intimate with your readers is not a good idea. Putting in too much personal information may backfire someday.



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hazelandrea
I believe that the online world can do so much to improve and advertise your businesses but in order for it to help you, it must be utilized the right way. I definitely agree that social media platforms are a good way to promote your business because that is what people do most of the time. This will let people know what kind of business you are running and how can they be able to use your products to help them in their lives.



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limberg
Awesome tips as always! I keep coming back to SEO clerks just to read your posts.

I do have one query - is it not advisable to edit your old articles? Will it really lose traffic? I thought that Google loves updates to a website. Isn't it that updating an article be more beneficial in the long run?

I hope you'd explain a bit more the reason why we would lose traffic just by updating an old article.



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rhombus
I need to re-invent myself, at that moment I have some obvious connections to my personal profiles. This can not be beneficial business wise because as you rightly pointed out, a post or two about my cat will slip out. Even worse, tagged photos from the weekend. I do not want my brand to be me, it would be too messy - I have a full-time job. I hope this makes sense....



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