Digital Marketing Mistakes Even Enterprise Businesses Make - Inc.

Kristopher B. Jones is a serial entrepreneur and investor. Kris is the Founder of 2020 SEO Agency of the Year Finalist LSEO.com.

Digital marketing can be a tough nut to crack, even for big enterprise businesses. The internet is a constantly changing landscape of apps and algorithms, a wild west of infinite opportunities, but also of infinite challenges.

As much as things change, there are a few pitfalls that remain ever-present threats, regardless of how big or small your business is. But with evergreen problems come a few evergreen solutions.

Here are some of the biggest digital marketing mistakes even enterprise businesses make and what you can do to avoid them.

Not Having a Game Plan

If you want to be successful, you have to have a game plan. Period.

This is true for any kind of business engaged in digital marketing, but it’s especially important for enterprise businesses. The biggest mistake any entrepreneur can make when approaching their digital marketing strategy is to assume that “if you build it, they will come.”

The truth is, if all you do is build it, it will sit there and do nothing. Maybe a few people will come, but, ultimately, no one will notice and no one will care unless you figure out how to generate brand awareness.

So, ask yourself: How are you going to do that? What is your marketing budget? What are your long-term goals? What image do you want to fashion for yourself? What is the audience you want to appeal to? Last but not least, how do you reach that audience? Answering these questions is how you start developing your game plan.

Removing Old Content

Way back in ancient history⁠–year 1996 AD⁠–Microsoft founder Bill Gates penned an essay whose title has since become the unofficial motto for digital marketing professionals: “Content is King.” In it, Gates said this:

If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. 

He was right then, and he’s still right today. The thing that sets digital content apart from traditional marketing formats is its interactivity and multimedia capabilities. Creating influential content requires the use of hyperlinks, images, and timely information. Otherwise, it’s simply not up to snuff.

However, that doesn’t mean you should start deleting out-of-date or underperforming content–which could wreak total havoc on your SEO.

Think of your digital marketing strategy as a building, with your content being the beams and the bricks that hold it all together. Just because a piece is rusty or cracked doesn’t mean you should just remove it; all that does is damage the entire structure’s integrity.

Instead, update its information. Re-tailor your keywords. Add multimedia elements. Think of ways to refresh your old content to give it a new lease on life. 

Favoring Quantity Over Quality

Hand-in-hand with my previous point, let’s talk about quantity versus quality when it comes to digital marketing content. If your business is growing, your digital marketing should be growing, too. If your online presence is shrinking, like by reducing your content production, that’s a sign that something is probably wrong.

That said, more content doesn’t automatically equate to better marketing. Especially not if that content is of low quality.

The biggest thing that low-quality content forgoes, though, is relevance. Too many new enterprise businesses try to game the system by flooding the internet with off-site content that contains plenty of backlinks but little else. They think that having more backlinks with no substance behind them will help them rise in the search rankings, so they cut corners to create as much content as they can.

The idea that links outweigh content is a common SEO myth. Search engines don’t just take note of how many times your website is linked, but also the context in which that link appears. This includes the credibility of the site/page the link is on, how relevant users find the information and how natural or unnatural the link’s placement in the content is.

As with so many things in life, it’s vital in digital marketing to find a good balance between quality and quantity.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.