Who would have thought the Internet becomes a powerful way to market products and services? Probably, no one.
Whatever your product is, whatever your service is – you need to create an online presence to embrace more people.
They say internet marketing is easier than offline marketing. They say it’s inexpensive.
For example, you can start by creating a video if you want a promotional campaign. Then, you can circulate the video by embedding it on your website.
You can also invite more bloggers to write something about you and the video.
They say it’s measurable. You can always monitor your analytics. You’ll know who plays your video, what time of the day it gets more clicks and what techniques you can do to increase its visibility.
These days, however, internet marketing gets more complicated due to these illegal methods and practices.
Anything that is done to disobey FTC Internet Marketing Rules, CAN-SPAM Act and Google Guidelines is highly prohibited.
To get things done and crystal clearer, here are the Top 10 internet marketing services you shouldn’t include in your plan. Protect your site from any of the following techniques before it’s too late.
Black Hat SEO
Internet marketing includes search engine optimization. These two are inseparable. Don’t expect you’ll do good in internet marketing without understanding the basics of SEO.
The biggest problem is, hundreds of people want to get smarter than Google. They invent these illegal techniques and unluckily, they have hundreds of followers too.
Buying Email List
Success in internet marketing doesn’t happen overnight but with consistency, you’ll go in the right direction. Therefore, there’s no need to buy a list of email addresses.
Lead generation is the hardest. Building a foundation of trust takes time but you’ll see, it’s worth the wait.
Automated Content
Quality content connects you to your target audience. For this reason, it’s never a smart decision to rely on automation to publish articles on your blog.
You need a content marketing plan or – if you’re too busy, consider hiring a content writer. Search engines love quality blogs, well-written press releases, slide presentations and free e-books.
Free Autoresponder
The techniques in email marketing serve as the juiciest part of internet marketing. It’s where you negotiate and close a deal.
That’s why; use a paid autoresponder in monitoring your campaign. These are more trusted and stress-free.
URL Tweak
There’s no other way to improve search ranking than to perform the legal techniques, on-page and off-page.
If the technique requires you to insert or add something in the url, don’t think twice. It’s illegal.
Unnecessary Display Ads
This isn’t an illegal technique but it’s unnecessary. Display advertising works but it’s unhealthy when you’re losing a lot of money.
That’s why; before relying on ads, stick to your budget. Better ask yourself: How much do I want to spend?
Forum Listing
This is a popular black hat technique used by link builders. What they’re doing is register to hundreds of online forums, even it’s irrelevant to your business, and put the site’s homepage in the signature.
Multi-Level Marketing
Referral marketing is done using word of mouth. You encourage high profile people to mention your products and services in YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
MLM does the opposite. Its main purpose it to sell, nothing more. People recruit other people in an attempt to create a multiple level of compensation.
Fake Reviews
Registering your site in selected review sites is recommended. More people will trust your products and services if it’s filled with star ratings and good reviews.
Yet, fake reviews are circulated around the web these days. These reviews are mostly done by your competitors. They post negative reviews under fake names to bring you down.
Blog Commenting
Irrelevant and fluff comments make no sense. Oftentimes, these are written for the sole purpose of putting a backlink in the url box.
Internet marketing is about hard work. You don’t simply fool around to earn money. It pays to be patient and it pays to say no to illegal internet marketing services listed above.
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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/
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